Blood and Chaos: the James and Mark Story
by redsandman99
Summary: The tale of everyone's favorite psychos, as told by them mostly and typed by someone who knows how to use a computer.
1. Introduction

I know this is just the beginning of this thing and I shouldn't give away anything that might be in the epilogue, but I have to get this off my chest: I am currently planning on killing everyone involved in the making of this fucking thing (except for me of course--I like myself very much and have no plans on killing myself any time soon). James, Mark, Connor, Glenn, Phil...they all drove me absolutely fucking nuts! Those last three fuckers hijacked this book from me several different times and acted like what they had to say on the matter. Of course I actually had to help Connor hijack this thing because there was, is, and forever will be no chance in hell that he is ever going to touch my computer. Period. End of story. He can touch everyone else's computer, but not mine. My computer is one of my babies and the day he puts his clumsy little hands on it is the day I kill him for real. For shizzle.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, this is the introduction. What I still don't understand is why this thing even needs an introduction. Or better yet, why this thing has to exist at all? We can't publish this thing. If this got published, me, Dad, Connor and Mark would end up in jail for murder. And it's not like any of us are going to go back and reread this thing once it's done. It'll just either stay on my computer until I delete it or if I do have to print this, it'll just sit somewhere until Snoopy comes along and rips it to shreds. That's what that little fucking dog does now. It wants to eat everything because Connor gives him treats to get stuff back instead of scolding him like he should. So now Snoopy is stealing everything he can just to get his little doggy bones. Shoes, shirts, pants, tissues, socks, paper, plastic....he hasn't stolen any of my stuff yet, but if he does, I'm hitting him with a newspaper. That will teach the mutt to knock that shit off.

Oh fuck, I'm off track again. This is why I didn't want to write this introduction. But Dad's making me do it, just like he made me help out with the debacle that is known as his and Mark's biography. This bullshit started about four months ago. I remember the day perfectly. I was laying on the couch, trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to watch. Connor and Phil were bitching at me because I wouldn't let them watch they wanted. Connor had wanted to put in Transformers 2 and Phil had wanted me to turn it to Keeping Up With the Kardashians. But since I had already watched Transformers 2 with Connor four times the two days before that (Connor's more than a little obsessive when he starts watching a movie he likes) and there was no way in hell I was going to ever willingly watch the fucking Kardashians do anything, I told them both to go to hell. While they were whining and bitching at me, Dad had come in to talk to me.

"Would you two shut up?" he snapped at Connor and Phil. He was only wearing a pair of jeans and he had bruises all over him, which meant he had just gotten done having sex with Mark. "I need to talk to Cooper."

"But Daddy, Cooper won't let me watch my movie!" Connor whined. "And Phil's being annoying!"

"I am not!" Phil denied. It appeared that he was hurt by that statement, although it was hard to tell for sure with the forrest growing on his face.

"You are too!" Connor insisted.

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Uh huh!"

"SHUT UP!" Dad roared. Normally he never yells at Connor like that, but when the two brats get into it, screaming at the top of your lungs is the only way to get them to shut the hell up.

Connor made a loud whining noise and then stormed off. There was absolutely no doubt that he was going to go to Mark and tattle on Dad for yelling at him. Phil just huffed and pouted. For a brief moment, he and Dad had a little stare down. But that ended when Dad acted like he was going to grab at Punk and Punk chose to run out of the room as fast as he could. "Little bitch," Dad muttered as he watched Phil run. He looked back at me. "I need your help with something," he told me.

"Okay," I said, already uneasy about where this conversation was going. Dad needing help usually never equaled anything good.

"Mark and I want to--"

"Wait, does Mark actually want any part of this? Or are you making him go along with whatever you have planned?"

"Uh....does that actually matter?"

I sighed. That meant Mark didn't want any part of it and was going to be an ass about the whole thing. "Just go ahead and tell me what you want Dad," I said. I thought that the sooner I found out what he wanted, the sooner we could get it all over with.

"Mark and I need a biography," he informed me. "And you're going to help us write it."

I stared at him like he had grown a second head. I hadn't even expected to hear anything like that. "A biography?"

"Yup," he confirmed.

"Uh...why do you guys need a biography?" I asked.

"Well I was reading--"

"You can read?" I blurted out before I could stop myself. The look I got in return was enough to make me cringe. "Sorry," I said quickly.

Dad kept glaring at me for a second longer before getting back to telling me what he wanted. "Like I was saying, I was reading the back of the new DX book--"

Of course he was only reading the back. Silly me actually thought he had opened a book for once in his life.

"--and I thought if they could have a book, then Mark and I should have our own book. I mean, you can't tell Mark's story without me and you can't tell my story without Mark."

"So you want a biography about the both of you guys?" I said, suddenly remembering that Family Guy was going to be on in two minutes aand wanting to wrap this conversation up as fast as I could.

"Yup," he confirmed. "But we need help typing it so that's where you come in. Can you help us out?"

Now this is the point where I fucked up. In my haste to see the new episode of Family Guy, I told him that I would help him out. The way I had figured it at the time, this was going to be something that he forgot all about before morning. But obviously I was wrong, and I paid for it by being annoyed out of my mind the entire time this thing was written. Interviewing Dad and Mark at the same time was a pain in the ass because they spent most of the time fighting, and if I interviewed them seperately, I would sometimes get two different versions of the same story. And then dealing with everyone else when they wanted to get their say in...*shudders*

So, in short, this is Dad and Mark's story, as told by them and as typed by me. Except for the parts that were hijacked...but I'm not getting into that right now because it makes my eye twitch. If anyone that's not part of the family comes across this, you will keep this a secret or you will be horribly murdered. This is your only warning.

---Cooper Lawson

(aka the man who will murder the Miz if he ever tries to touch my Jeff or makes fun of Connor again).


	2. Family Matters, Part 1

Chapter 1: Family Matters, Part 1 (Mark)

First of all, for the record, I would like to say that this was not my idea. This was all James's idea and I wanted no part of it. But since I actually want to get laid again sometime soon, I guess I'm doing this shit.

Ugh, where do I even start? The beginning? Thank you Smartass. I would have never figured that out if it wasn't for you. Alright um....well which fucking beginning boy? And are you typing this shit? What the fuck are you trying to do, make me look like an asshole? I do that fine by myself? Oh you little....

**(note: A fight broke out between Cooper and Mark at this point and it took Glenn and James twenty minutes to seperate them and another ten minutes to calm them down)**.

Mother fucking son of a bitch....where the fuck were we? Oh fuck it, someone said start with the parents and that's what I'm going to do. My parents met when they were in high school. My dad was the local freak that nobody wanted to hang around and my mom was the ugly dumpy chick that got made fun of by everyone. I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but that's just the way it was. I've seen pictures so I've seen the proof. Anyway, they met and started dating and not long after they graduated they got married. Dad decided to get into the funeral home business my grandpa was running and Mom settled for being a housewife. Her parents hated that because they wanted her to be a nurse or something like that. But seeing as how they died about a month after the wedding, it really didn't matter what they wanted.

I was born about a year and a half into their marriage. By then Dad had taken over the funeral home Grandpa had started and he hired Paul Bearer to be his assistant. But honestly, I think Paul did more assisting with the family than he did with the business. Dad was more interested in the dead bodies than he was his own family. The only times he ever stayed upstairs with us for any significant amount of time was during meals and when he was kicking the shit out of us for being too loud. He had this thing about silence. During meals he didn't want us talking unless he told us to talk. And the rest of the time, he never wanted us making too much noise. He said that the noise gave him a headache, but I actually think that the noise broke his concentration when he was trying to fuck the bodies he was supposed to be prepping for the funerals. I think I was like four or something the first time he smacked me across the face with his belt because of the whole noise thing. It was back when we still lived in Texas and I was probably about four at the time. Glenn (who was two or some shit like that), had knocked something over and it was louder than shit. Mom didn't want Dad spanking Glenn so she threw me under the bus, even though I hadn't even done anything. Fuck, I hadn't even been in the room at the time, so I was confused as hell about why I had gotten hit.

When I got a little older, every time Dad would hit me, I would hit him in the nuts back. I had actually seen James do it to Joseph, and I figured that would work for me. I actually provoked the confrontation that day. I came home from school, grabbed some pots from the kitchen and started banging them together as hard as I could. It probably took Dad about ten seconds to come running at me like he was a fucking bull or something.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing boy?" he snarled. He was already taking his belt off and gearing up to hit me with it.

"Whatever the fuck I want to," I replied defiantely. I hated always having to be quiet and I was already at my fucking breaking point.

He attempted to grab my hair so he could hold me still while he whipped me but I moved my head and punched him right between the legs as hard as I could. He doubled over in pain and I took the belt so I could hit him in the face with it. "This hurts!" I informed him. "You fucking hit me again with it and I'll fucking kill you!"

His eyes got all wide and shit as I stormed off. To this day I don't know if I was bluffing or not. James talked about wanting to kill people a lot back then and I was kind of curious about it. And my dad would have been a great first victim but uh...well things didn't really work out that way.

As for Mom....well honestly, she never really had much use for me, unless she could blame something on me. As soon as Glenn was born, he was the apple of her eye and her world revolved around him. She spoiled the living shit out of that kid, and basically left me to my own devices. Occassionaly she would try to boss me around and act like she gave a shit, but those attempts never lasted long. Within minutes Glenn would do something to get her attention and it was like I didn't even exist. Most people thought I hated Glenn because of that, but I didn't. I actually loved the little brat. Did he get on my nerves? Fuck yes. I swear, if Mom wasn't fussing over him, he was following me around and acting like there was an umbilical cord between us. His first word was actually Mark. My mom kept trying to get him to say "Mama" but he looked at me and shouted "Mark!" at the top of his lungs. Fuck she was pissed about that.

What was good about Glenn was that I was able to teach him not to be a fucking tattle tale. If he wanted to hang out with me, he needed to keep his mouth shut about anything I did. I remember there was an incident right before we moved to Las Vegas between me and our next door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Hendrickson. Mrs. Hendrickson didn't like me because I pushed her son Josh into a mud puddle and Mr. Hendrickson didn't like me because I told him to fuck off. Apparently it was disrespectful for a kid fresh out of preschool to say that to an adult. I never saw the logic in that argument, but whatever. Anyway, since we were going to move, I figured that I needed to say goodbye to them properly. So when I was supposed to be taking a nap, I snuck out of the house and caught some rattlesnakes. It was stupid as hell for me to do because I almost got bit like ten times that day, but nobody ever accused me of being the brightest bulb of the bunch back then. Anyway, I put all the snakes in a bag and snuck into the Hendricksons' house through the back door. Nobody locked their doors back then, so it was really easy for me to get in there. They weren't home so I went upstairs to Mr. and Mrs. Hendrickson's bedroom and dumped the entire bag of snakes right on to their bed. Then I ran the fuck home and waited for the madness to begin.

The Hendrickson's got home about an hour after I had done the deed. About ten minutes after they got in the house, Mrs. Hendrickson came running out screaming at the top of her lungs, carrying Josh and acting like they were both about to die. She immediately came over to my house and started screaming at Mom, accusing me of the snakes. Mom, who had just woken up from a Valium induced sleep, was completely confused and had no idea what was going on. Then Mr. Hendrickson came over and started screaming at Mom too. That was when Dad came upstairs and started screaming at them for making so much noise. It was so hard for me not to laugh during all that, although lucky for me, I managed to do it. Bearer was watching me the whole time and if I would have laughed, he would have ratted me out right then and there.

Dad finally slammed the door in the Hendricksons' face and then they turned around to glare at me. Before they could say a word though, Glenn waddled over and shook his head. "No Daddy. No Momma. Mark not bad. Mark pay wit me. He not bad."

"Yeah!" I said, hugging my little brother and making a note to make sure he got all the cookies he wanted later. "I've been playing with Glenn all day! I haven't done anything!"

My parents both looked at each other and then my dad walked away. He didn't like our neighbors either and that was the only reason why he wasn't pushing the subject. And since Mom adored Glenn, she was taking his word for my behavior on this occassion. The only person who didn't believe me was that fat fuck Bearer.

Bearer and I had a very tense relationship. He didn't like the way I ran wild and he didn't like the way my parents didn't punish me unless I did something that directly disturbed or annoyed them. And I didn't like him because I thought he was a dickwad that was trying to steal my baby brother away from me. He never wanted Glenn to be around me. He always said that I was a bad influence. I actually started playing with Glenn more when I overheard him saying that. I never really trusted him when I was kid and our relationship never really got all that better when I got older. He still thought I was the bad child and constantly needed watched. And I just wanted him to stay the fuck out of my business. I didn't want to be watched by that asshole. I actually wished he was dead on more than one occassion. The only reason I never killed him though was because Glenn asked me not to. He had a soft spot for Bearer becasuse Mom liked him so much.

By the time we moved to Vegas when I was five, I already knew that I had a fucked up family. Even Glenn was realizing it and he wasn't even in preschool yet. But then I met James and well...that was when I learned that my family wasn't so bad after all.


	3. Family Matters, Part 2

Chapter 2: Family Matters, Part 2 (James)

There's always been a cycle of violence in the Lawson family. At least there has been as far as I know. Grandpa Lawson used to beat up his brothers and sisters all the time when he was a kid. His mom had died after the birth of his youngest sister Mary, and his dad put him in charge of the other kids while he worked. Grandpa actually told me that he would beat all of his siblings within an inch of their lives whenever they got out of line. They didn't actually have to do something bad to get out of line though. All they had to do to get their asses kicked was annoy him in some stupid fashion. The asshole was a complete sadist. Everyone in the family pretty much knew that he was responsible for the "accidental" deaths of two of his brothers and baby Mary. The other kids actually ran away because they didn't want to be next. Fucking pussies. They should have killed the cocksucker and gotten it over with....oh wait, without him, I couldn't have been born. Well shit, I guess it's a good thing they didn't kill him. I actually enjoy being alive.

Anyway, Grandpa enlisted in the army at seventeen and was in World War I. I guess he got a real taste for killing during that shit because when he came back home, he started really getting into the whole murdering people thing. I think that was actually how he met grandma. He killed her family and then kidnapped her. Now I don't know what he did to her exactly, but about a year and a half after he took her away, they got married. I'm pretty sure he brainwashed her or something because there was no way anyone would willingly marry him otherwise. After they got married, she popped out ten fucking kids. Joseph was number three in that litter and for some reason, he was the only one Grandpa actually liked. Like Grandpa, Joseph beat on his brothers and sisters (except for the two that were older than him; he was too much of a pussy to go after them). Of course Grandpa beat on him just for the hell of it, but there was a lot of resentment from my aunts and uncles because he never got it as bad as they did. I guess Grandpa let him off a tad bit easier because he saw a bit of himself in the fat bastard.

By the time Joseph dropped out of high school, the family was living in Los Angeles and Grandpa owned a few production companies. Joseph decided that he wanted to do that too, but he wasn't planning on producing the kind of movies Grandpa was producing. Once he weasled the resources out of Grandpa, LaS Productions was born. At first everyone thought that stood for Lawson and Smith, since they were the ones running things (although in all honesty, from what I've been told, Smith was more Joseph's manservent than anything else). In reality though, LaS stood for Likansuck, and they were making pornos. They aired their movies in old theaters that had been closed down for years and they actually made a shit load of money off of them. Grandpa found out and got pissed about it. I think it was just because he hadn't thought to make pornos, but at any rate, he and Joseph had a bit of a falling out at that point. Grandpa almost got Joseph's money taken away, but at the last minute he decided that if Joseph could find a wife to settle down with, he would leave Likansuk alone. In a way, that was actually more cruel than putting Joseph out of business because he never wanted to get married. But since he believed he didn't have a choice, he told Smith to help him get a bitch and fast. And as fate would have it, Smith's aunt and uncle were looking to get their oldest daughter married to anyone who could put up with her. About a week later, Joseph eloped with the devil herself. Everyone just called her Caroline for short.

Caroline came from a really old fashioned Southern family. I mean seriously, Grandpa and Grandma Keisner would have been more at home back in the 1800s. Caroline hated her parents, but she went along with what they wanted for a really long time because she wanted to make sure she was in their will. Grandpa Keisner owned a company that drilled for oil and he made a fortune off of that. Grandma Keisner was always off doing social bullshit and that left Caroline and her two sisters in the care of their nannies. Each of them had their own team of servents and Caroline never kept hers for very long. Nobody could stand being around her. I actually talked to some of those people one time and they all said that she was the most unpleasant person that they had ever met. If Joseph had knew what he was getting into...well he was a dumbass and probably would have married her anyway. Stupid mother fucker was all he was.

From the stories I've heard, my parents' marriage was bad right from the start. Joseph was used to bullying everyone around, but he especially liked doing it to women. Once his younger brothers got big enough, they beat the shit out of him as payback for everything he had ever done to them. After that, he mostly just stuck with terrorizing women. But Caroline was the not the type that was easily terrorized. She was not intimidated, bullied or frightened of anyone or anything. If Joseph hit her then she hit him back. If he really beat her up, she'd take it and then get him back later. She verbally tore him a new asshole every day, and took away his balls every chace she got. I want to say she was the fucking Ice Queen, but ice melts and she never did. I never even got her to melt and I tortured her for days before I killed her.

My parents didn't have their first kid until six years after they got married. Caroline never wanted children, but she and Joseph got into an argument one night that escalated into them beating the shit out of each other and ended with him raping her. Nine months later, she ended up giving birth to my older brother Jacob. He was a fatass like Joseph, and I think he made Caroline even more bitter and pissed off than she already was. He was always fussy and shit, and Caroline couldn't hand him off to the nannies like her mom did because none of the people she hired could stand working in the house for more than a day. Grandma Lawson almost took custody of Jacob because she recognized how shitty a mother Caroline was, but Grandpa Lawson shot that idea down as fast as he could. And then he probably beat the shit out of Grandma for not minding her own business like he always told her to.

Four years after Jacob was born, Caroline got pregnant with me and Annabelle. She tried to get an abortion but Grandpa Keisner found out and managed to put a stop to it at the last minute. Then he and Grandma Keisner moved in until after Annabelle and I were born just to make sure she wouldn't try anything like that again. At least that's what Grandma Lawson told me. I never got to ask them myself, because six months later, they were found dead in their house. They had been shot in the head and a whole bunch of their stuff was stolen. Nobody was ever arrested for it because there had been no witnesses, no fingerprints and the stolen stuff and the gun was never found. Caroline had struck with a vengeance.

My first real memory I have involves Caroline. It's not something I want to remember but it's definitely not something that can just be forgotten. I was three years old at the time and it was about a year or so after we had moved to Las Vegas. Joseph was at work, Jacob was at school and Annabelle was taking a nap. I had just woken up and was going to go downstairs and get myself something to eat. I had already learned at that time that you needed to fend for yourself in that house because if you didn't, you were going to starve. Joseph didn't know how to cook and Caroline refused to cook for us kids. The only time us kids weren't nearly starving to death was during the few times we had a maid that would make us stuff. On my way to the kitchen, I heard my mom in her room. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to go in there and see what she was doing. I found out very quickly that that was the worst thing that I could have done.

"What the hell do you want?" she snapped coldly as soon as she saw me walking in. Her hair was all messed up and she had a wild and deranged look in her eyes. There were empty vodka and pill bottles all over the floor. She was fucked up out of her mind, although I didn't know that at the time.

"I don't know," I told her, which was the truth.

She shook her head and went over to her closet. It looked like she was getting something but I couldn't see what it was. "Come here," she ordered. "I want to show you something."

I actually took a step back towards the door. Even at three years old I had a bad fucking feeling about what she wanted. "I don't wanna," I informed her.

"I don't give a shit!" she snarled. "Get over here now!"

The feeling in my gut told me to run, but I didn't. I went over there and almost got killed for it. As soon as I was within her reach, she grabbed me by the hair and attempted to drive a straightened out wire hanger right into my throat. I yanked myself mostly out of the way just in time and ended up getting a long gash all across the side of my neck. It hurt really fucking badly. The gash was at least a couple inches deep and it began just pouring out blood instantly. I've been freaked out very few times in my life and that was one of those times. I may not have understood why the fuck she was attacking me, but I knew that if I didn't get the hell out of there fast, I was going to get killed.

Caroline attempted to get a better hold on me but I bit her and managed to escape to Annabelle's room. Annabelle began freaking out and I had to use one of her blankets to stop the bleeding. I think I eventually ended up putting duct tape on the wound because there weren't any band-aids in the house. After that day, I never entered Caroline's room again. Even after she was dead, I stayed far away from it. I wasn't making that mistake again.

I never told Joseph about what happened. It wasn't like he cared anyway. When he wasn't at work, he was either eating everything in our pantry, fucking the drugged up girls he brought home or beating the shit out of all of us. Sometimes he managed to do all three in the span of one night. There was one particular night that things got really out of control. I was seven years old and Annabelle and I were watching TV in the living room. Jacob was in the kitchen eating a gigantic sandwich that he had made for himself. We all thought Caroline was upstairs, but were soon proven wrong when we heard this:

"Eating again?" SMACK. "AGAIN? You fucking little pig!" SMACK. "You're almost as big as your father and you're not even half his age." SMACK. "You stupid pig! You fucking little shit eating cock sucking--"

"Ow ow ow owie!" Jacob howled. "Mommy you're hurting me!"

Annabelle hugged my arm tightly. "James let's go," she whispered. She wanted to hide because the last time Caroline had gone off, Mommy Dearest had taken a pair of scissors and cut off her hair. I had fixed it as best as I could, but it was even shorter than my hair, which she hated. The other girls at school teased her for having a "boy" haircut.

Before I could even respond to her, Joseph came in the front door carrying an unconscious blonde girl over his shoulder. "What the fuck are you two doing up?" he grunted as he attempted to kick the door shut behind him and almost fell over on his bulging stomach. "Aren't you two supposed to be in bed yet?"

"It's only 7:30 dumbass," I told him rudely. I looked at the girl he was carrying. "Who's she?"

"None of your business," he grunted.

"You're gonna touch her inappropriately, aren't ya?"

"Boy don't you start your shit with me." Joseph already looked ready to smack me and he had only been back for a minute.

Suddenly Jacob came waddling out of the kitchen as fast as he could, screaming at the top of his lungs. Caroline was right on his heels, smashing a dinner plate over his head. All two hundred and forty five pounds of him went crashing to the ground, actually causing a couple of the paintings on the wall to fall down. I laughed and Annabelle hugged her knees to her chest and began trying to escape to her own world.

Caroline stomped on Jacob's unconscious body before looking over at Joseph. "Oh you have got to be kidding me!" she yelled. "Again Joseph? Again?"

"Yes again," he said. "It's my house and I can bring whoever I want home." He pointed to me. "Why don't you control him and keep him out of my way? Little bastard was just getting lippy with me."

"Fuck you mother fucker!" I stated boldly. I climbed up on the back of the couch so I could be the same height as him.

Joseph glared at me. "What the fuck did you just say to me?"

"You heard me!" I told him. I had a knife from the kitchen in my pocket. Unbeknownst to them, my homicidal urges were really starting to come alive at that age. I talked to Mark about killing someone all the time back then and I wanted to do it so badly. I didn't know why I wanted to do it and I definitely didn't know what the consequences could be if I did it, but I knew I wanted to do it.

Joseph put down the girl and came at me. Instantly I jumped at him, managing to grab a hold of his thick meaty neck with one hand so I could hit him in the face with my other one. He stumbled all over the place and ended up somehow smacking Caroline across the face in his attempt to get me the fuck off of him.

"James!" Annabelle yelled, watching the scene with wide, fearful eyes. "Daddy don't--"

Joseph finally managed to pry me off and tossed me all the way across the room. I bounced off the wall and ended up smacking my head on the floor when I landed on it. That dazed the fuck out of me and the next thing I knew, my ass was getting tossed out a window. The glass cut the shit out of me and I just laid there for awhile, looking up at the sky and wandering why the fuck I got stuck with parents that did this bullshit. When I got back up and climbed back through the window, Joseph had one fat meaty hand on Caroline and the other on Annabelle. He was yanking them both around by the hair. I didn't give a shit about Mom, but the last thing I wanted to see was Annabelle getting hurt. I went for my knife but I couldn't find it. It had fallen out of my pocket when I had gone through the window. So instead I just charged at him and began beating him with my fists, actually catching him in the nuts more than a couple of times. He let Annabelle go and started grabbing at me. I kept hitting him and then Caroline was hitting both him and me so I started hitting her too and Joseph was hitting the both of us. By the time we all ended breaking apart, I had two black eyes and busted lip, Caroline was missing a tooth and had several chunks of hair pulled right out of her head and Joseph had bloody scratches all over his face and he was doubled over in pain massaging his nuts. But somehow, some way, he had the instestinal fortitude to get up, finish the sandwich Jacob got in trouble for eating and then rape the girl he had brought home. That fucking pig.

I've never told a lot of people about how bad things were when I was a kid. I don't even talk about it to Mark that much, and he knows almost everything that went on there. Annabelle was the only one I loved and cared about. We did pretty much everything together. She was my other half and I adored her. And she loved me back. Even though she knew how fucked up I was, she still loved me, which was more than I could say about anyone else in my family.

Sometimes Jacob would try to follow me around and act like he wanted to hang out with me. He had no friends at all and most of his time was spent eating and watching TV. Whenever he came near me, he would start whining and complaining about absolutely nothing. It was so annoying. And he didn't bathe that often so he stunk like shit. Annabelle and I just ignored him as best as we could. Neither of us wanted to deal with him.

Someone once asked me if I hated Caroline and Joseph more. And the answer was, is and will always be Caroline. I hated Joseph too, but he was easy to deal with compared to her. All he wanted to do was hit and yell. Caroline played a hell of a lot more mind games than that. She was ALWAYS there. Even if she wasn't around, her presence loomed over me. She hated me more than Jacob and Annabelle combined, and she hated them with just about every fiber of her being. Something about me just bugged her, so she went out of her way to make me feel like a worthless piece of shit.

In some ways, the verbal and emotional abuse were worse than the physical abuse. When I was in preschool, I started realizing that Caroline's behavior was not normal for a mother. I saw all the other kids' Moms hugging them and kissing them and acting like they loved them. It confused the fuck out of me, and one day, not too long before Christmas, I decided to ask her about it.

"Mommy," I said. "Why don't you ever pick me and Annabelle up from school?"

"Because I have better things to do," she replied without looking at me. She was busy trying to get a lid off a Jack Daniels bottle so she could drink until she passed out.

"Oh. Well why don't you ever hug me or anything?"

"Because I would rather shoot myself in the face," she informed me. She got the lid off the bottle and began drinking right out of it.

I blinked, not really getting that one. I hadn't really been exposed to guns yet at that age so I didn't really know what she was implying with that. "Mommy?"

"WHAT?" she shouted, really getting irritated now.

"Why hasn't Santa ever brought me any presents?"

"Because you're a fucking waste of space," she snapped. "Now get the fuck out of my sight."

Some mother huh?


	4. The Meeting

The Meeting

Mark's side of the story

September 8, 1970. The first day of kindergarten. My family had just moved to Las Vegas from Texas a few weeks beforehand and I wasn't really liking it. All the kids on my block had been teasing me because of my accent and I had already bloodied more than a few noses by that point. "Why can't you be good for once?" Mom asked me as she put the breakfast dishes into the sink. "There's no reason to fight with everyone. Glenn doesn't do that!"

"Glenn's a baby," I reminded her. I was sitting on the floor and putting my shoes on. "He doesn't even know how to fight."

Mom shook her head while she turned around to look back at me. "That's not the--Marcus William Calaway! I told you to fix your hair!"

I ran my hand through my bright red hair. When I had looked in the mirror earlier, I had seen absolutely nothing wrong with my hair when I had looked in the mirror earlier. "It's fine!" I told her. "There's nothing wrong with it."

She rolled her eyes and grabbed me by the wrist so she could attempt to drag me upstairs. What was sad about this whole thing was the fact that she had JUST noticed the state of my hair, despite the fact that we had actually just eaten breakfast together. "You cannot go to school looking like this! People are going to think you were raised in a barn!"

"No they won't," I denied. "It's not like I smell like horse shit or anything."

It appeared that she was going to tell me to watch my language, but at that moment, Glenn started yelling for her. Instantly she forgot about my hair and went off to go see what he wanted. I sighed and went back to the kitchen so I could grab my bookbag. Bearer was in there now and he gave me a nasty look as I entered the room. "Make sure you come home right after school," he told me. "The last thing your parents need right now is to worry about is you running around and getting in trouble."

"Whatever Bearer," I said as I grabbed my bag and started heading to the door.

"That's Uncle Paul to you boy."

"In your dreams Fatso." I hated it whenever he tried to make me call him Uncle Paul. I knew damn well that he wasn't any blood uncle of mine. I had asked Grandpa about it before we had left Texas and he told me that I should never respect the fat bastard because he was a hypocrite and temptation for my mother. I didn't know what the hell that meant at the time, but it made me mouth off to him even more than before.

The walk to school took about ten minutes. On the way there, I thought about running away back to Texas. Besides from the one set of annoying neighbors, my family had lived in a pretty isolated area. I had free reign of the woods by our house and I didn't have to worry about anyone destroying anything I built. I think the only thing that stopped me from actually running away right then and there was the fact that I left my piggy bank full of money at home. I had a whopping six bucks in the damn thing, and I thought I was a freaking billionaire at the time. Although I have to say, at the time six bucks did get you a little bit further than it does today...but that's beside the point.

Anyway, when I got to school, I fucking got lost in the damn place. Nobody had actually told me where my classroom was (or if they did, I had forgotten about it) and I wandered around the whole place three times before someone found me and got me to where I was supposed to be. By the time I was brought there, the teacher was having the other kids do some sort of activity, so I ended up disturbing them and getting stared at like some sort of freak by everyone...well, everyone except for one person. There was one boy scribbling all over the piece of paper he had and he didn't even seem to notice that I was there at first. The girl next to him stared at me for only a second and then quickly looked down.

"Why don't you go back and sit with James and Annabelle?" the teacher suggested, pointing the way like I was too stupid to figure out who they were. They were the only two kids who had any empty seats left at their table.

I sighed and went to the back of the room and sat down. Annabelle refused to look at me, and she had yet to start on whatever it was that the teacher was making them do. She was just playing with the sleeves of her shirt nervously, acting like she wanted to run out of the room screaming at the top of her lungs. James still hadn't even looked at me yet at this point. He was scribbling so hard on the piece of paper he had that he was ripping it to shreds. Once that was shredded, he looked up and finally noticed that I was there. He stared at me for a second before blurting out this little gem: "Your hair looks like it's on fire." Then, before I could even try to form a response, he got up, jumped on the table and started hopping around. "Fire!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Fire fire fire fire fire fire!"

Now I'll admit to being kind of freaked out by that display at the time. I hadn't really ever seen anyone act like that before. And while it's somewhat amusing in retrospect, it's still kind of scary because it makes me think about how much Connor is really like James when he was younger.

Despite that weird start, the morning went okay...for me anyway. The teacher didn't have such a good day that day. Even when she got James down from the table, he just kept causing all kinds of trouble. I learned that first day that James liked to throw things. He liked to throw pencils, paper, markers, chairs...by the time recess came around, the teacher looked ready to strangle him.

When I got out to the playground, I intended to just keep by myself. Playing with other kids didn't appeal to me at all. But just as I was finding a nice corner to settle down in, I saw James push over this little nerdy Asian kid. For some reason that made me laugh like hell, and I laughed even harder as I watched Annabelle scold James just as he was kicking dirt into the kid's face. At that moment, James looked up and saw that I was laughing. And in that moment, there was a connection made. He left Annabelle to help the nerd up so he could walk over and talk to me.

"I'm James," he said, tilt his head to the side and staring at me like I was some kind of creature from another planet. "What's your name?"

"Mark," I replied.

He laughed. "Have you ever killed a squirrel Marky?"

"No...and my name's Mark, not Marky."

"Oh cheer up Marky. I'll kill a squirrel for you." And that's when that crazy son of a bitch picked up a rock and looked around until he saw a squirrel running up a tree. He chucked that rock right at that squirrel and hit it right on the head, killing it instantly. He whooped loudly and then looked at me. "You try!"

I wasn't one that liked to be outdone, so I picked up a rock and chucked it at the next squirrel I saw. I missed by a mile and ended hitting some innocent girl in the face...which made both of us laugh so hard that we nearly pissed ourselves.

It was an interesting way to start our relationship off, to say the least.

....

James's side of the story

I almost actually didn't make it to school the day I met Mark. Grandma Lawson had gotten us registered just like she had before becasue Caroline and Joseph refused to do it, and the plan had been for her to drop us off and pick us up at the end of the day. Unfortunately, Grandpa Lawson had decided to be an asshole and wouldn't let her out of the house on the first day of school. That meant Annabelle, Jacob and I had to walk there...and we almost didn't make it out the front door. We almost all got caught in the crossfire of Caroline and Joseph's fighting, which was really out of control that day.

"I don't know why you're bothering to go!" Caroline screamed at us as we were leaving. "You're all too stupid to learn anything anyway!"

"Just let them go Caroline!" Joseph roared from the kitchen. "Maybe they'll get hit by a car on the way there and we won't have to put up with them anymore!"

Annabelle's lower lip began to quiver. "I don't want to get hit by a car!" she said fearfully. She was seriously two seconds away from crying at that moment. Caroline and Joseph's fighting scared her and the thought of getting hit by a car was too much to take that day.

I scowled and looked back towards the kitchen. "I hope you fucking choke to death on Caroline's dick and die asshole!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. Now I didn't know from personal experience whether Caroline had a dick or not. I had just said it because it seemed like the thing to blurt out at the time.

Caroline's eyes widened and we could all Joseph storming out of the kitchen before we saw him. "What the fuck did you just say to me?" he shouted.

I didn't get a chance to stand my ground. I was dragged out the front door by a terrified Annabelle. "Run!" she begged. "James run!"

I didn't want to run, but I did anyway. It was only for her though. I did almost anything she wanted me to. I was just whipped like that.

"Guys wait for me!" Jacob pleaded as we ran to school. "James! Annabelle! Please wait! I can't breathe!"

"That's not my problem Fatty!" I yelled back at him.

"James!" Annabelle scolded. "That's not nice!"

"So?" I replied with a shrug. "He's fat. I'm only saying what everyone else already knows."

Annabelle didn't have a response to that. She just looked back and saw that Jacob had fallen down and was having trouble getting back up to his own two feet. She almost went back to help him, but she decided against it. Even though she made half hearted attempts to stand up for him, she didn't like him any better than I did. He reminded both of us of a less violent version of Joseph, which was not a good thing.

When we got to school, I found myself feeling really hyper. At that age, we didn't get away from Caroline and Joseph's reign of terror that often, so whenever we did, I got kind of crazy. I really didn't pay any attention to what was going on as class started, and when we were given paper to do whatever the fuck it was the teacher wanted us to do, I just started scribbling all over it. I think the scribbling thing was because of me being hyper…plus it was fun to do…don't give me that look Cooper Lawson. Seriously, knock it the fuck off.

Anyway, after I was done being entertained by the scribbling, I looked back up and saw that there was another boy sitting with us now. Annabelle wasn't really looking at him because she was all shy and shit. I didn't have that problem though. I stared at the kid openly, and I'm not kidding when I say that I had never seen a boy with that bright of hair. And being me, I had to go and open my mouth abou it. "Your hair looks like it's on fire." Once those words left my mouth, my hyper issues kicked in and I jumped on the table and started screaming "Fire!" at the top of my lungs. The teacher tried to get me to calm down but I wasn't listening to a word she said. I raised hell all morning, letting the bitch know right then and there that she was in for a long year.

By the time recess came around, not only was the teacher ready to strangle me, but Annabelle was as well. She wasn't liking school as much as me. I didn't really know why at the time, but after I shoved some random kid on his ass and laughed about it, she got all pissy with me and I decided that I needed to get the hell away from her for awhile. Luckily for me, I saw that red headed kid laughing about it too so I decided to go over there and talk to him. "I'm James," I said, tilting my head to the side in an effort to see if he looked any different sideways. As it turned out, he didn't.

"Mark," he told me.

I laughed. I liked that name. "Have you ever killed a squirrel Marky?"

"No…and my name's Mark, not Marky."

I didn't actually care whether he didn't like me calling him Marky or not. That's what I felt like calling him so that was what I was going to do. "Oh cheer up Marky. I'll kill a squirrel for you." I picked up a rock and began looking around. Now I wasn't big on animal killing like some killers are when they're kids, but I wasn't opposed to taking out a squirrel. I could feel Mark's eyes on me and I smirked a little as I chucked the rock at a squirrel running up a tree. I hit it right in the head, which killed it right away. I whooped and celebrated a little bit before turning to Mark. "You try!"

So Mark picked up a rock and began looking around. I bounced around eagerly, expecting him to hit a squirrel too. He looked like a good squirrel killer. But what actually happened was that he missed, and hit an innocent girl in the face. That made us both laugh like hell…actually that still makes me laugh. He knocked out three of the bitch's teeth with that rock.

And that was the start of our beautiful, weird and twisted friendship.


	5. The Early Years

The Early Years (Mark)

After that first day we met, James and I were attached to the hip. If you found one of us, the other one was usually nearby. I had never really had a friend before and I kind of liked it. Annabelle kind of annoyed me at first because at the age of four, I had made the determination that girls had cooties and had to be stayed away from--which was a belief I still held at age five when I met James. Of course James immediately tried to set me straight about the whole matter. He told me girls could only be infected by cooties if they became friends with other girls, and that would never happen to Annabelle because she wouldn't ever make friends with those bitches. Now I didn't believe him at first, but I came to realize that Annabelle really wasn't like anyone else I knew. For one thing, when we were at school, she was totally dependent on James. She could not function unless he was right by her side. If he got sent to time out, she went to the corner with him. The teacher would then usually pick her up and carry her back to her seat, which sent her into a huge tizzy. And it would get worse if James got sent to the principal's office. Back in those days, the principal and most of the teachers walloped you pretty good if you misbehaved, so James was taking his fair share of beatings. But it wasn't worse than anything he was enduring at home, so he never said anything to her. He tried to keep her in the dark about it. Unfortunately, some older kid told her some kind of horror story about what happened when you got sent to the principal's office, and it freaked her out so badly that she would have a panic attack every time James got sent out of the room. What nobody (not even James or I) understood back then was that Annabelle perceived the entire world as a threat. Her own home was the biggest one, but she didn't feel safe anywhere unless James was around to protect her. Caroline and Joseph had fucked up her brain with their constant abuse, and at that age, she didn't really understand that not everyone was like them.

So really, it didn't take me too long to get over the fact that Annabelle was always around. But just because I tolerated her didn't mean that I liked her--and I know that the feeling was more than mutual. Most of our bad feelings to each other stemmed from the fact that we were competing for James's attention. She was used to having him all to herself and resented me for making James act even crazier than he usually did. I think she thought that I was going to get him into really big trouble and get him taken away from her. And in my defense, James was the only person I could truly relate to completely, and I wanted him all to myself. James and Glenn had similar problems with each other, although Glenn's resentment towards James was a lot more vocal than Annabelle's resentment towards me was, but that was because James picked on Glenn a lot. It wasn't anything too nasty like Glenn sometimes claims it was; I would have whooped his ass if it was. But like me, James got enjoyment out of doing bad things to people at their expense. I couldn't hate him for that, even if his victim was my own flesh and blood.

But as much as Glenn didn't like James, Mom, Dad and Bearer hated him that much more. The first time I brought James and Annabelle over at my house made sure of that. It was a week after I had first met them and they had decided to come home with me instead of going to their own house. I didn't actually know why at the time and I didn't really care. I had nothing better to do so I was all for having some company.

"So does your dad keep dead bodies out all over the place?" James asked as we climbed up the steps of my front porch. I had just gotten done telling him what Dad did for a living, so now he was just chalk full of questions.

I shook my head. "No, he keeps them in the basement. Glenn and I aren't allowed to go down there and poke them with sticks." This was something I greatly resented my parents for for the longest time. If I had just been allowed to poke a body with a stick, my interest would have waned after the first time. But once it was made to be forbidden, it became an obsession of mine for quite awhile. And that obsession was all their fault. Those bastards.

Annabelle looked at my house fearfully. "Is it haunted?" she asked timidly.

I rolled my eyes. "No. Why would it be haunted?"

"There could be ghosts in there."

"There's no such thing as ghosts. Only weenies believe in ghosts."

Annabelle glared at me and then looked at James. James just patted her on the head and smiled. "Don't worry sissy. If any ghosts try to come after you, I'll kick them in the scrotum!" Now I don't know where he first heard that word and considering the fact that he even told girls he would kick them in their scrotum, I'm still pretty sure he didn't actually know what that really was at the time. But still, coming from him, that was a pretty intimidating threat.

That put Annabelle to ease and she and James followed me into my house. Mom was playing with Glenn in the living room and she looked surprised as hell when she saw that I had two people with me. I hadn't actually asked permission for James and Annabelle to come over that day, and I would never actually ask for that permission for the rest of Mom's life. "Uh...hello Mark," she said, trying to sound like a nice, caring mom. The way she was staring at James and Annabelle told the story about how she was really feeling though. She was big on appearances and James and Annabelle both looked like they had been rescued from the jungle. They didn't smell or anything bad like that, but their clothes were basically stretched and ripped from them getting grabbed and thrown around and their hair was really long and untamed. I don't think they had brushes of their own until they were seven or eight. Helping their children with their grooming was not on either Caroline or Joseph's agenda. "I didn't know that you were going to have guests over."

"Yeah well, now ya know," I replied.

Glenn got up to his feet and came over to me. "Mark!" he said happily. "Mark home!"

James snickered as Glenn wrapped his arms around my legs. I patted him on the head while shooting James a glare. It was supposed to get him to shut up, but he just kept right on snickering.

Mom sighed. "Well why don't you three go outside and--"

"Where are the dead bodies?" James asked impatiently. He put his hands on his hips and looked around. Even though I had told him where the bodies were actually kept, that information had obviously gone in one ear and out the other. "I want to see the dead bodies."

Mom looked taken aback by that statement. Even though she had heard me make similar requests before, she had obviously not been expecting to ever hear another small child say that.

Annabelle shook her head vehemently. "James no! You might disturb the ghost if you look at the bodies!"

Glenn looked up at her with his huge, innocent eyes. "Ghosts?" he repeated, sounding absolutely horrified at the thought.

I rolled my eyes. "The bodies are in the basement and there's no fucking ghosts! Ghosts aren't real!"

"Mark! Watch your language!" Mom scolded. She looked at Annabelle. "Honey, Mark is right though. Ghosts are not real." Then she looked at James. "And bodies are not a sight for children's eyes. So why don't you go with Mark and play outside?"

"Cuz I don't want to!" James replied. "I want to see a dead body!" He ran out of the room as fast as he could and began opening every door he could get his hands on. "Dead bodies! Oh dead peoples! I is here to see you!"

"What the--get back here!" Mom exclaimed. She immediately began chasing after him, and Annabelle, Glenn and I were right on her heels. Even though we were really young, we recognized the fact that this was something that could not be missed.

Mom attempted to grab James but he just kicked her in the shin and ran around him. "Mark! Where are the dead bodies?"

"Come here, I'll show you," I said. I grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him into the kitchen, which was where the basement door was. I knew that I would catch a whipping for it later, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to see what James was gonna do when he saw the bodies.

"Marcus William Calaway, you stop right now!" Mom yelled. She almost got her hands on us but she ended up tripping and falling over one of Glenn's toys.

"In a minute Mama!" I replied. I just about slid and fell on my ass as I skided across the kitchen floor. I managed to regain my balance long enough to open the basement door and I let him start running down the stairs before I followed him in. Dad and Bearer were down there, working on one of the bodies they had just put into a coffin. To say that they were shocked by our arrival would be an understatement.

"What the hell are you doing down here boy?" Dad yelled angrily. He began taking off his belt as he walked towards me. "I told you to stay out of here!"

"James wants to see a body," I explained, really not wanting to get whupped in front of James. I had my kiddie pride after all.

"Who the fuck is James?"

"Me!" James replied. His eyes were locked on the casket and that was enough to set him off his rocker. "Oooohhhh! I wanna touch it!" He took off running full steam ahead, sliding in between Dad's legs and easily avoiding Bearer's attempt to grab him. "Wheeee!" he shouted as he jumped right into the casket and sat down right on the dead man's chest. "Marky he's cold! Come feel him!"

"Get out of there!" Dad roared. He started storming over to the casket while Bearer attempted to grab James by the scruff of the neck.

"James watch out!" I yelled, lunging forward and grabbing my dad's right leg in an effort to slow him down.

James growled and bit down on Bearer's hand as hard as he could. Bearer screamed in pain and desperately tried to shake James off of him. James wasn't going to just let the fat fuck off easily though. He waited until Bearer's hand started bleeding a whole bunch before letting go and jumping out of the casket. "I touched a body! I touched a body!" he said gleefully.

I would have been happier for him if Dad hadn't clocked me right upside the head with his belt buckle. Dad was beyond furious that his prescious work space had been violated, and he went after James next. James dodged him easily though, and he grabbed me and we both ran up the stairs as fast as we could. We managed to slip past Mom and we grabbed Annabelle and Glenn and then went to the park to play.

That was the first time James caused chaos at my house, but it wouldn't be the last time he did it. Despite Mom and Dad both telling me that he could never come over again, he somehow ended up there pretty much every day. Now he didn't cause complete destruction every time he went over, but if he got started, it was hard to get him to stop. He knocked over Mom's stuff just to see if he could break it, he hid Glenn's toys, he threw things at Bearer and if he got the chance, he'd go down to the basement and poke the dead bodies. I would do everything he did (and then some) and Annabelle would watch, always fearful that we were going to get beaten by my parents.

During one of the many times we got into the basement, Dad and Bearer were at the bank trying to take care of some loan issues and Mom was outside with Glenn, so nobody knew that we were down there. We had a body of a guy who had gotten stabbed right in the chest by his wife, and James had unbuttoned the guy's shirt so he could look at the wound himself.

"James please, I wanna get out of here," Annabelle whimpered. She had her thumb in her mouth, but she wasn't sucking on it; she was actually gnawing on it. It was a nervous habit of hers until the age of eleven, and it left behind more than its share of scars because she would litterally bite until she bled. "It's scary down here."

"Oh it is not," I told her. "Quit being a big baby. There's not--" I stopped and gasped. "Oh my God Annabelle! There's a monster behind you!"

Annabelle screamed and jumped about ten feet into the air. "James!" she shrieked, bursting into tears right then and there.

"Mark!" James growled.

I just laughed. I couldn't help myself.

James sighed and walked over to Annabelle to comfort her. "There's no monsters," he assured her. "Mark only said that because he's a poopy pants."

I stopped laughing. When you're a kid, being called a poopy pants was one of the worst things ever. I think it has to do with the whole accusation that you shit yourself like a little baby. "Hey! I'm not a poopy pants!"

Annabelle and James ignored me. "You sure?" she asked.

"Uh huh," James said. "They're too scared of me to come in here."

"Why?" I asked. "Do they know that you're gonna kick them in the scrotin?"

"It's scrotum Marky," he said impatiently. "And that's not why anymore." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a butcher knife. "This is why."

Annabelle gasped. "James! Where did you get that?"

"From the kitchen," he replied. He didn't bother to clarify whether it was from his or my kitchen. Instead he walked back over to the dead body and stared at it hungrily. "I had a dream where I stabbed Caroline," he confessed. "She bled a whole bunch and I was really happy about it." He turned around to face us. "I want to do it," he announced. "I want to stab someone and make them all dead."

"Why?" I asked. I wasn't asking because I was actually opposed to it. I just was curious to find out why.

He shrugged. "Because I think it would be fun."

Who could argue with that logic? I couldn't. From that point on, he talked about death a lot. It freaked Annabelle out, but I didn't really mind it. I had about as much use for other people as he did, so all his talk about killing people only turned me on to the subject.

During the first year of our friendship, he absolutely refused to let me come over to his house. No matter what we did, we couldn't go to his place and play. I didn't really care at first, but eventually curiosity got the best of me. "Why can't I go to your house?" I asked him every day for a two week period. "You've been to mine a whole bunch. I want to see what your house looks like."

"No you don't," he told me. "It's not nice there."

"My house isn't nice," I replied.

"It's nicer than mine," he grumbled. That would be the last thing he would say before clamming up. Then he wouldn't say another word until I changed the subject.

After those two weeks of me asking to go to his house, I found out why he didn't want to go home. Unfortunately, I found out in a very public and humilating way. James had been acting up even more than usual the day before and the school decided to finally have a meeting with his parents about his behavior. That turned out to be a huge mistake. Caroline was the only one that showed up to that meeting and she allegedly cussed out the principal, the vice principal, the secretary and the nurse, who had innocently walked into the room just to deliver a message to the principal. Then she made her way to the classroom, where James was with me and Annabelle. He was acting up, just like he usually did. That day he was standing on his desk, yelling at the teacher because she was trying to make him do something he didn't want to do. But when Caroline stormed in, a look flashed across his face that I had never seen before. It was something he denied back then and he will deny it to this very day. But I knew it when I saw it.

It was fear. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was scared of this woman.

"What the FUCK have you been doing?" she yelled angrily. "That fucking asshole Mr. Daniels called me all the way down here so he could complain about what a little fucking asshole you're being. Do you think I fucking WANT to be here right now James? Huh? Answer me damn it!"

James glared at her. "I didn't do anything Mom," he said.

Caroline snorted. "If you didn't do anything, then why the hell am I here?"

James just kind of shrugged, which proved to be the wrong thing to do. When Caroline asked you something, she wanted a fucking verbal response. I saw that for myself as she literally slapped the taste right out of James's mouth right there in front of everyone. The smack echoed throughout the room and since I was sitting on the side he got smacked on, I saw the handprint that appeared almost immediately afterwards.

"We're going home," Caroline informed him. "Right now."

"No," he refused. "I don't wanna go with you."

For a moment, I seriously thought that Caroline was going to hit him again. But instead she smirked and then grabbed Annabelle by the hair. "We'll see about that," she said as she literally dragged poor Annabelle out of the room.

That was all it took to get James to jump off that desk and chase after her. I got out of my seat to join in, and even the teacher tried to stop Caroline. Caroline ended up shoving the teacher on her ass and then hitting me in the face when I attempted to kick her. Now I have been hit a lot of times by many different people, but the only person who can hit as hard as Caroline could is James. I don't know where she got the strength from, but her slaps felt like punches and her punches felt like getting hit in the face with a baseball bat. I think the bitch had lead in her hand instead of bone.

Anyway, Caroline did end up dragging James and Annabelle home that day. And it was three days before I saw either of them again. When they did come back to school, they had bruises all over their faces and it was another couple of days before James was able to run around and cause his usual brand of mayhem.

Of course I did eventually end up going to his house. It was inevitable. But we only went there when it was absolutely necessary. Caroline and Joseph didn't care who you were: if you were there when they were pissed, you got swung at. And more often than that, you got hit really fucking hard. I took my share of licks, but James always got the worst of it. And after every beating, there came more and more talk about killing someone. For a couple of years, a lot of it was just talk. I think Annabelle managed to keep him from actually going through with it for awhile. But eventually he had to do it. It was too much to resist anymore. And on that first day the monster was released, three people died at his hands.

Now if that wasn't a sign of things to come, I don't know what is.


	6. The First Murders

The First Murders (James)

On April 28th, 1973, I turned eight years old. And let me tell you that the day did not start out very good. Joseph was wondering around the house in a drunken haze, hitting anyone who got in his way; Caroline was in a foul mood because Jacob had broke a chair by plopping down on it too hard and dear Grandpa and Grandma Lawson had moved in with us because…well I actually don't remember why. Nobody had bothered to keep us kids in the loop when it came to that whole situation. What I do remember is that I didn't like either of them. Grandpa was a complete asshole and Grandma was just as pathetic as Jacob was, so I couldn't stand her either. Anyway, Grandpa was the reason I was woken up by a crying Annabelle. If he had just left her alone, that whole day might have turned out differently (might being the key word).

"What's wrong Bella?" I asked, my mind too sleepy and foggy to actually spit out her whole name. But as more of her tears began to soak my shirt, the faster that fog started to clear up.

"Grandpa threatened me," she said, terrified out of her fucking mind.

"What?" I said, not liking that shit at all. To say I was a little bit overprotective of Annabelle at this point would be an understatement. Anyone who messed with her had to deal with me, which was part of the reason why the entire school was pretty scared of me at this point. My methods of dealing with people who messed with Annabelle were pretty violent, and they had gotten me suspended a couple of times already. "Why?"

Annabelle scooted back a little bit so she could look at me. Her eyes were all red and puffy from crying. "He was being mean to Grandma and I told him to stop it. He got all mad and told me that if I didn't keep my mouth shut, today would be my last birthday ever."

I scowled. What really got to me was that I knew Grandpa was the type to go through with that kind of threat. I had seen him kill some woman barely two weeks before that day, and there was also some kid that mouthed off to him in a restaurant that was never seen again after doing so. Grandpa was definitely a threat to Annabelle's safety and a plan began to form in my diabolical mind. Unfortunately, I couldn't go through with the plan yet. I needed to wait for a more opportune moment. "Come on, let's go see Mark," I said. I got off the bed and began climbing out of my window.

"James?" Annabelle said, trying to stifle her giggles. "You're not dressed yet."

I paused and looked down at myself. I was still indeed in my sleeping shorts. "Damn it," I muttered as I changed directions so I could quickly get dressed. Annabelle giggled at me the whole time, and even though I usually hated getting laughed at, I didn't mind it as much when she did it. It was actually nice hearing her laugh once in awhile. She didn't actually get a chance to do it that often when we were that age.

Once I was dressed we snuck out of our house through my window and went over to Mark's. His mom had taken Glenn to the park and his dad and Bearer were in the basement working so he had been left unattended once again. By the time we got to him, he was tying a hamster to a bottle rocket. "What the hell are you doing?" I asked him.

"I'm gonna see how far this little rat can fly," Mark replied. He took out his dad's lighter from his pocket and began to ignite the rocket.

"No!" Annabelle yelled, startling the hell out of me with her yelling. She shot forward and kicked Mark in the shin. As Mark let out a yelp of pain, she snatched the rocket out of his hand and freed the hamster from it's captive state. "You leave it alone! It didn't do anything to you!"

Mark stared at her incredulously. "So? What does that have to do with anything?"

She glared at him before turning to me and giving me a pleading look. "I want to keep it," she said, clutching the hamster protectively against her. "Tell Mark to leave it alone."

I sighed and looked at Mark, who just rolled his eyes. He already knew what I was going to say. "Forget it," he muttered, trying not to shoot Annabelle a nasty look because he knew exactly how I felt about him doing that.

I looked back and forth between Mark and Annabelle, really wishing that they could get along better. It would have made my life at least a tiny bit easier. "Let's go," I said, grabbing them both by the arm and dragging them along.

"Where are we going?" Annabelle asked.

"We're going to go to the pet store and steal a cage for your rat," I told her."

Mark brightened right up at that. He loved stealing things. None of us got an allowance from our parents, so we either had to steal money to buy the stuff we wanted or we had to just go ahead and steal the things ourselves. We had started our thievery about a month after we had entered the second grade, and we got good at it fast.

"A cage isn't gonna be easy to steal," Annabelle pointed out. She was gently petting the hamster all while keeping a very watchful eye on Mark. She seemed to believe that he would all of a sudden come over and try to blow the damn thing up again. "It's all big and stuff."

"Thank you Sherlock," Mark said sarcastically. "How did you ever figure that out?"

She flipped him off in response and then quickly used me as a human shield as he glared at her. I just rolled my eyes and kept walking. The pet store was all the way downtown and we had at least a couple of miles to go before we got there. My original plan for that day was to walk all the way there, but that soon went to hell. By the time we had walked four blocks, Annabelle and Mark wouldn't stop bickering and it was driving me insane.

We needed a way to get to our destination faster. "We need bikes," I announced. "Where can we get some bikes?"

"We can steal some from the park," Mark answered. "There has to be some there ripe for the taking and it's only a couple of blocks from here."

I was sold on that idea, but Annabelle had an issue with it. "What about Sally?" she asked, holding up the hamster that had snuggled up in the palm of her hand and fallen asleep. "I can't hang on to her if I'm busy steering a bike."

I quickly came up with a solution to that problem. "Put her in the pocket that your shirt has," I told her. "And don't crash and land on her."

"Wait, how do we know that rat is a girl?" Mark asked. "How do we know it isn't a boy?"

Annabelle just shrugged as she put Sally into her pocket. She obviously didn't know. Mark looked at me and I shook my head. I wasn't the expert of hamster gender, and I wasn't going to start trying to become one on that particular day. Mark decided to just drop the subject and we managed to get to the park without taking each other's heads off, which was at least a tiny bit of progress.

The park was full of kids, but there weren't a whole lot of bikes that we could snatch without getting caught. We weren't the type to give up easily though (at least Mark and I weren't anyway). We stayed hidden behind a couple of trees and kept looking around until we saw an opportunity. There were two bikes near the water fountain and the crowd of kids that had been near there ran off to go play on the swings. Mark and I immediately took advantage of the situation by running over, snatching the bikes and riding off on them before anyone could stop us. I stopped long enough to allow Annabelle to get on the back of my bike and then we were racing off to the pet store.

When we got to the pet store, Annabelle was left outside while Mark and I went in to do the stealing. There was no way we could let her come in with us. She would just look guilty and give us away. "I'm going to do the work this time Lawson," Mark whispered to me. "You just cause a distraction."

I was about to protest that decision but I didn't get a chance to. Mark had taken off before I could even open my mouth. I sighed and walked over to the snakes. What I actually wanted was a puppy, but I couldn't risk getting one. Caroline and Joseph hated dogs and since a puppies are not easy things to hide and I wasn't big enough or strong enough to protect it from them, it would be several more years before I got the pet I always wanted.

I have to say though that I was somewhat happy with the pet I did end up getting that day. You see, while I was trying to think of a way to cause some sort of distraction, I saw two snakes in a glass cage. Without even thinking about it, I let both snakes out of the cage, setting one down on the floor and putting the other one inside of my shirt. The snake I put on the floor immediately went towards a woman looking at some dog food with her baby, and she started screaming her head off. I quickly ducked out of sight as the person working the cash register came running over to see what was going on. Mark already had the cage Annabelle needed in his possession and I quickly ran over and grabbed one for myself on our way out. I didn't need to worry about getting food for my new snake. My house was full of mice and I trusted my mouse catching abilities completely.

"Thank you guys," Annabelle said as she took the cage from Mark. She put Sally into the cage as I put my snake (who would eventually be called Poison) into the cage I had gotten. Now that we had the cages with us, we didn't have any plans on taking the stolen bikes with us. There were several bus stops all around the downtown area and we could easily sneak on to one of the things to get back within walking distance of home.

"What should we do now?" Mark asked as we walked along.

"We could get ice cream," Annabelle suggested eagerly.

Mark looked at me. "What do you think? You think ice cream is a good plan?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "Let's get ice cream."

With that settled, we were off to the grocery store. Mark and I each stole a gallon of chocolate ice cream and some plastic spoons while Annabelle bought a head of lettuce because that was what she was going to feed Sally (I never figured out whether hamsters were actually supposed to eat lettuce or not). Once we had everything we needed, we went to Devil's Slide. Devil's Slide was actually an park hidden in the downtown area that had a wicked ass hill that could seriously hurt you if you slid down it. A lot of people didn't know it was even there, and the ones that did didn't go there that often. There had been a Satanic murder there about three years ago and people still didn't think it was safe to go back there at the time. I loved the place though. Sure there were creepy people sometimes, but it was still a cool place to hang out.

"We should have brought a box with us," Mark said as we sat near the swings. We were digging into the ice cream like we hadn't ate in ages. "We could have gotten in it and went down the hill in it."

"We could just roll down the damn thing," I pointed out. "That's fun to do."

Annabelle gave me a shocked look. "Why would you want to do that? You nearly broke your arm the last time you did that!"

I just shrugged. "I know. What's your point?"

She sighed in frustration. She knew that there was no reasoning with me.

We continued eating our ice cream and didn't notice the homeless person that was stumbling toward us until he practically fell right on top of Annabelle. She screamed and I immediately grabbed a rock, jumped up to my feet and smashed it against the back of his head. That blow I delivered woke something up inside of me that I had only dreamt about before. It made me feel beyond amazing and I immediately started hitting him over and over again, attempting to bash his head in with all the strength that I had. I had to say that I did a pretty good job of it too. By the time that I was done, we could all see bits and pieces of his brains coming out of his skull.

"Holy shit!" Mark said after I had stopped hitting the guy. He was actually laughing at the moment. "Way to go Lawson!"

Annabelle, who had slipped out from underneath the homeless guy I had just killed, stared at me with wide eyes. She had a bit of the guy's blood on her and I went to go wipe it off of her. She didn't let me do it though. She backed away from me and switched from looking at me to looking at the body. She was definitely freaked out.

I looked back at the body and grinned. I had talked and dreamed about killing someone before, but this was beyond anything I had imagined. From the moment I had started bashing his skull in with that rock, an incredible euphoria had filled me. The only thing I can possibly compare it to is getting high on drugs for the first time, but even that experience paled in comparison to all of my kills. On top of that euphoria, it just felt _right_. That's the only way I can describe it. And as I stared at that body, I knew that I wanted-and needed-to do it again.

Mark got up and started poking the guy's brains with a stick. "So what should we do with him?" he asked. "Do you think we should bury him?"

I shrugged. "How would we bury him? We don't have a shovel."

"Good point," Mark admitted. He looked around. "We could just leave him here. It's not like anyone really comes to this place anyway. It could be forever before anyone finds his body."

I nodded. I was just fine with just leaving him here. I looked over at Annabelle, who was still staring at the body with wide eyes. "Annabelle?" I said hesitantly.

"I want to get out of here," she announced. "Right now."

Since neither Mark nor I had any objections to that plan, we gathered up our stuff and got the fuck out of there. As we were leaving, I noticed that I had blood on my shirt. I quickly clutched Poison's cage to my torso to cover it up. "I need to go home and change," I announced.

Mark gave me a funny look. "Why would you need to go home for that? You can just go to my place and borrow one of my shirts."

I shook my head. "I gotta go home for something else too."

Annabelle gave me an apprehensive look, but couldn't vocalize the question she was obviously thinking. I didn't help ease her anxiety at all by laughing evilly. You see, killing that homeless man wasn't planned, but it reaffirmed the plan I had made earlier: I had to kill Grandpa Lawson. If he was going to go around threatening Annabelle, then he couldn't be allowed to live. What if he tried to do something to her when I wasn't around? It was a very rare thing for me _not _to be with Annabelle, but it did happen on occasion. Grandpa was evil enough to hurt her and seeing how he was probably going to be taking his afternoon nap by the time we got home, he was going to be completely vulnerable for the killing.

Both Mark and Annabelle seemed to sense that I was planning something evil, but neither of them asked me about it. Annabelle was too scared to and Mark seemed more interested in finding out by just letting me do what I wanted. I appreciated that and after we snuck on to the first bus that would take us within walking distance of my house, I let him hold Poison (it was on this bus ride home that I officially named him).

"I don't know why you're calling this thing Poison," Mark said as he looked into Poison's eyes. "I don't think this thing is poisonous."

I shrugged. "So? I like the name Poison. It's awesome." I petted Poison's head. "Isn't that right Poison?" I grinned until I saw that people were staring at my snake like they wanted to throw it off the bus. I immediately glared and growled at those mother fuckers. That made them turn right around and start minding their own fucking business.

Once we got off the bus, it was about a twenty minute walk home. When we got there, Joseph was passed out on the floor, Caroline was gone and Jacob was hiding upstairs in his room. Annabelle immediately went into her room so she could find a spot to hide Sally and Mark and I went to my room so we could hide Poison. "Your mom is going to go absolutely nuts if she ever finds him," Mark said wisely.

"I know," I said. I made sure to hide Poison's cage in the corner of the room and surround it with enough shit so that nobody could see it by just walking into the room and taking a casual look around. Once I was satisfied that he was well hidden, I opened the drawer of the nightstand that was near by bed and pulled out the knife that I usually tried to keep on hand at all times. I had forgotten it earlier because I had been more focused on trying to get Annabelle out of the house before Grandpa had tried to do anything to her. I made a mental note to not ever do that again. "I'll deal with her when I have to. Right now I have bigger things to worry about."

Mark looked at the knife and grinned. "You're gonna kill someone else, aren't ya?"

"Yup," I confirmed. I began walking out of the room.

"Who are you gonna kill?" Mark asked as he followed me out of the room.

"Grandpa," I replied honestly. "Now shush!"

Mark gave me an irritated look. "Don't tell me to shush! You're like a billion times louder than I am asshole!"

I smacked him on the chest and then creeped into Grandpa's room (Grandpa and Grandma had separate rooms for some reason…nobody ever actually told me why they didn't just share a fucking room). Grandpa was sleeping in his bed, and judging from the way he was snoring, it didn't seem like he was going to be waking up any time soon. I looked back at Mark, who grinned at me. That was all the encouragement I needed. I tip toed over to Grandpa's bed, my knife grasped tightly in my hands. My heart started to beat faster and the anticipation of what I was about to do started making it hard for me to breathe. I climbed up on the bed and grinned down at Grandpa with a very evil smile. I was definitely going to enjoy this.

Grandpa started to roll over on his side, but my driving my knife directly into his chest put an end to that. His eyes snapped open as the blood began to pour out of the wound and he stared at me in shock. "Hello Grandpa," I said cheerfully. I yanked the knife out and watched him start drowning in his own blood. That was entertaining for only a minute and I quickly ended up stabbing him like six more times just for the fun of it.

Mark laughed and walked over to the bed. "Good riddance," he said. "But…should we bury him? I mean, your parents are going to figure out there's a dead body up here eventually."

I shook my head. "Let them. They won't be able to prove it was me." I got off the bed. "Come on. I'm gonna change and then we can-" My voice died when I looked towards the door and saw Grandma staring at us. My first thought was "Oh shit, we're fucked." But when I saw that she was smiling, I just got confused. I looked over at Mark and he seemed to be just as confused as I was. We had thought that Grandma was pretty attached to Grandpa despite him treating her like shit and we would have figured that she would be upset by this turn of events.

Grandma shuffled her way over to me before very gingerly getting down on her knees. "Good boy James," she said softly. She gently grabbed me and kissed my cheek. "Good boy." She let me go and stretched her arms out in the crucifix pose that Raven would go on to use. "My turn," she said as she closed her eyes.

I blinked, definitely confused now.

"James please, I've wanted to die ever since he took me away," she pleaded softly. "Now's my chance."

Mark and I exchanged a look before I shrugged before driving the blade of the knife deep into her neck. She didn't make a sound as she died, but I could have sworn that there was a beginning of a very peaceful smile coming over her face. After we were sure she was dead, Mark and I went back to my room so I could change clothes and then the two of us, along with Annabelle left the house. We made a point to spend the night at Mark's that night, and when we got home the next day, the bodies were gone. Joseph had disposed of the bodies but hadn't called the police because it could risk exposing several of his own illegal activities. And along with Jacob, I don't think he ever figured out it was me that killed his parents that day. He wasn't smart enough to do so.

Caroline on the other hand….she knew it was me.

She _always_ knew…that fucking cunt.


	7. A Message from Glenn and Phil

A Special Message From the Big Red Machine and Princess Straightedge

Glenn

I know this is supposed to be Mark and James's book, but I have to put my two cents in here. I just have to. I can't let my voice go unheard anymore. Well technically I guess since this is a book, my voice won't literally be heard, but you get my point. And if you don't get my point, then you are a dumbass.

Plus, if I do this, it means I don't have to watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians with Phil. I love him to death but some of those shows he watches…no. Just no.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let's establish some things. First of all, I love Mark, even though he is a major asshole. And I'm not just saying that because _I have_ to love him or anything like that. I've always loved the bastard for some reason. He was my hero until I got smart enough to realize he was a fucked up little boy and then he was just…well he was Mark. That pretty much sums him up quite nicely.

But I will say this: I don't think Mark would have been quite as bad as he was when he was younger if it hadn't been for James. James really brought the worst out in Mark. He may not still realize that he did that, but it's the truth. Of course, to be fair, Annabelle said a hundred times that James was a lot worse when he had Mark to feed off from. So really, they were both a terrible influence on each other. It was like gasoline in a fire…although I'm not sure which one of them was which. Ugh, it doesn't even matter at this point. It's all the same anyway.

Now before the fire at the funeral parlor that turned me into a crispy critter, I will admit to being really freaked out by James. He was a creepy fucking kid back in the day. Think of how Connor is now, but take away some of the demented innocence and that was the way James was back then. One time, about a week after he killed his grandparents, I woke up to find him staring at me. And not only was he staring at me, but his face was only about an inch away from my own. I opened my mouth to call out for Mark but he quickly put his hand over my mouth.

"Quiet you!" he ordered. "Nobody can know I'm in here."

I tried to ask him why not, but all that came out was a muffled mess. He seemed to get the message though. "I'm an evil fairy," he informed me. He giggled insanely and started bouncing up and down. "I'm an evil fairy that eats people in their dreams." His giggling turned into a full fledged cackle and then he gave me a wet willy before jumping off my bed and running out of the room. That was the first but not the last time he ever woke me up by doing weird bullshit like that. And Mark knew what he was doing. I told him about it every time afterwards and James admitted to it. But Mark, being the dill hole that he was, never tried too hard to make James knock it off. Sure he would sometimes smack James for being an idiot and bugging me but we all knew violence wasn't the way to get into James's head and make him knock something off. He had been hit way too many times for that to be effective in any way, shape or form.

Mom, Dad and Bearer despised James with a fiery passion, but despite that, as I grew older, I found myself spending more and more time with him, Annabelle and Mark as a group. James took advantage of that by throwing things at me whenever the opportunity presented itself. At first I got hit with a lot of things but then I got pretty good at dodging all the shit. The reason why he always did that though remained a mystery for a couple of years. No matter how many times we demanded to know why he kept doing that, he refused to give us a straight answer. Finally, on a day where I managed to duck a flying candle and it smacked Mark right in the head, my dear older brother had enough of that crap and was determined to make James knock it the fuck off.

"What the hell is your problem?" Mark asked as he grabbed James and throttled him (much to my delight). "Why are you always throwing shit?"

James tried to say something but he couldn't. The grip Mark had on his neck was way too tight.

"Mark let go of him!" Annabelle pleaded. "You're choking him."

Mark eased up a little bit but he didn't let go completely. "Well?" he said impatiently.

James grinned. "It's fun!" he declared. He slipped out of Mark's grip and put his arm around me. "And it means that I love your baby brother."

I looked at him like he was insane. Even though I was only seven at the time, I had already come to realize that there was really no end to James's lunacy. "Don't touch me," I said, giving him the evil eye. That made Mark laugh but it didn't really please James all that much.

"I'll touch you if I want to," James said defiantly. To prove his point, he picked me up and started spinning me around. In the process, he started squeezing me really hard and it felt like he was about to crack a couple of my ribs.

"Owie!" I whined. I tried to wiggle out of his grip but he wouldn't let me go. "Mark! Help me!"

Mark sighed and shook his head. "Let him go you dope."

"Why?" James asked.

"Because he's whining."

"So?"

Annabelle shook her head. "It's mean to keep doing that to him James."

James snorted. "So?" he said again.

I whined and started kicking at him. He just laughed and then tried to throw me out the window. Unfortunately he missed and I ended bouncing off the wall, banging my funny bone in the process. My arm almost went completely numb and I whined as I just laid there on the floor. "Mark! Kick him for me!"

Mark rolled his eyes. "I don't want to kick him."

"Why?"

"Cuz I don't feel like it. If I kick him now, he'll kick me back and then I'll have to knock his teeth down his throat and then he'll bitch at me--"

"I don't bitch!" James claimed. He shoved Mark on the chest. "You take that back right now!"

Mark shook his head. "Make me Lawson." He shoved James back.

James scowled and immediately speared Mark to the ground. Mark let out a yell and the two of them started rolling all around the floor, throwing punches like nobody's business. Annabelle and I immediately jumped up on the bed so we would be somewhere that was remotely safe. "They're dumb," I told Annabelle.

She nodded. "Uh huh." She suddenly looked worried. "Don't tell James I said that, okay?"

"Okay." And I never did tell him that…although I did call him dumb myself on several occasions. It wasn't really a hard thing to do. Back in those days, he had the tendency to throw common sense right out the window and just do whatever stupid stunt that came into his mind. Case in point: the last day of school back when he, Mark and Annabelle were in fourth grade and I was in second grade, Captain Dumbass got the brilliant idea to steal a pair of roller skates and tie fireworks to the back of them so he could have rocket skates. And, to add icing to that very insane cake, he wanted to do that in the middle of the hallway at school so he could clothesline people on his way up to the moon.

Yeah…he had issues.

"James, don't do this," Annabelle pleaded as James put on the roller skates. Mark, who had provided the fireworks, had already attached them to the skates and was laughing even though nothing funny had actually happened. It seemed like whatever mental pictures he already had in his brains were quite amusing. "Seriously, you're gonna get hurt," Annabelle went on even though she had to know she was being ignored.

"Oh quit whining," Mark snapped as he helped James up to his feet. "Glenn, hang on to James so he don't fall on hi ass.

I rolled my eyes and did what I was told. Mark got his lighter out of his pocket and quickly lit the fireworks before somebody noticed what we were doing. As soon as they were lit, James began skating around as fast as he could, taking people down right and now but he wasn't doing it in the way that he had planned to. Instead of delivering clotheslines, he was grabbing people and taking them down just so he could stay up to his feet. Then the fireworks started going off like crazy and they turned out to be firecrackers, which startled James (it turned out he hadn't paid attention to what _kind_ of fireworks Mark had tied to the skates) and he ended up falling down and smacking his head real good on the floor. People were freaking out and screaming and he started cussing up a storm because the back of his legs got burned a little bit from the firecrackers. It was pretty fucking funny.

Okay, Phil's show is over now…ah crap, now Kendra is on? Fuck! That's it…I'm going to go hide in the basement. Those shows can't get me there.

…

Phil

I probably should not do this…this could get my ass kicked later. But I have a very interesting point to bring up about Straightedge. Now people complain about me being preachy and looking like Charles Manson and all that crap, but here's something you should think about: Caroline Lawson was an alcoholic. Caroline Lawson, according to James, drank every day of her life (that he saw anyway). Caroline Lawson was a scary bitch. She was an abusive, narcissistic, evil, vile woman. And do you want to know what probably made that worse? The alcohol. This drunk woman produced the biggest fucking psycho on the face of this planet and her abuse made him even more psychotic. So please, for the love of God, all you alcoholics, put down your drinks and accept Straighedge into your life…you might produce a James who will horribly slaughter you in the basement for being a horrendous bitch.

That is all. CM Jesus has spoken.

…

**Cooper's note: Ugh…I considered throwing this whole chapter out completely but I'm annoyed with Dad and Mark so I'm keeping it in because it will irritate them *laughs evilly***


	8. The Fire

The Fire (Mark)

Wrestling fans everywhere believe that the storyline about the fire that killed my parents and disfigured Kane is exactly that: a storyline. What they don't know though was that the so called storyline was actually based on real life events. Of course some facts changed when it came to the storyline and the whole reasoning behind the fire itself was lost in translation, but those changes had to be made. We couldn't talk about James on television without confusing the fuck out of people and it wasn't like we could bring James in to work with me…that would have been a disaster of epic proportions.

Anyway, James and I were ten when the fire happened. It was either early or mid-October…don't give me that look Cooper. Just because I can't remember the exact date anymore doesn't mean I'm going senile. No it does not! You know what? Just shut your fucking mouth. I'm not listening to another fucking word you say.

***Cooper note: Mark stormed out and refused to talk to me for two days ~laughs evilly~ I like getting under his skin. It's so fucking funny**

Alright, let's try this again. The day the whole fire thing happened, James and Annabelle came over and ended up in my room with Glenn and me. We were attempting to play Monopoly but it wasn't working out to well because James was being an idiot (like usual). I swear, the man can't play board games to save his own life. He gets all antsy and impatient and then cheats his ass off.

"James!" Glenn whined as James blatantly stole a whole bunch of his money and his property right in front of his eyes. "That's cheating! Give those back!"

"No," James replied.

I sighed as Glenn gave me a sad look with his big dumb eyes. "Give them back Lawson. You can't do that in this game."

"But I'm losing!" James whined.

"I'm losing too," Annabelle pointed out. "We can lose together." She was attempting to cheer him up and it might have worked if it hadn't involved the whole losing thing. His competitive nature combined with his narcissistic streak made for a very bad combination.

"I don't like this game anymore!" he declared as he flipped it over, sending the pieces flying everywhere. "It's stupid!"

I rolled my eyes. "Great Lawson. That's just fucking great. You will be picking all that up."

"I will not!" James refused. "Annabelle, tell him that I don't want to do it."

"No, tell him that he will do it!" I told her.

She looked back and forth between us, unsure about what to do. "Uh…oooh look! There's a penny!" She picked it up and hugged it like it was a fucking puppy or something. "I like pennies!"

I shook my head at her in disbelief. "You're fucking weird. And that's my penny! It was in my room so--"

"Yeah well its in her hand right now so its hers," James snapped. "And if you have a problem with that, you'll have to fight me for it." He got up to his feet and started jumping around and swinging his fists. "Put them up!" he ordered. "Put em up put em up put em up mother fucker!"

Annabelle put her hand over her mouth to cover up her giggles. He looked absolutely ridiculous doing that and she knew it. Glenn looked at me, fully expecting me to get up and kick his ass. Before I could even get up, my bedroom door opened and in walked Bearer. "What are they doing in here?" he asked angrily, pointing at James and Annabelle. He was looking at them like they were the devil or something.

"They're playing with me," I told him.

Now it was my turn to get glared at. "They are not supposed to be in here!" he said angrily. "You have been told a hundred times not to bring them into our home, especially when Glenn is here!"

"Relax Uncle Paul," Glenn said, standing up to the fat bastard in an attempt to help me. "Annabelle is my friend and James is Mark's friend. We--"

"Annabelle is a harlot and James is a demon!" Paul snapped, actually yelling at Glenn for a change. That shocked the hell out of my dear baby brother because he never got yelled at by our parents or Bearer. "You do not need to be exposed to them!"

"What the fuck is a harlot?" James whispered to me. He wasn't even concerned about the fact that he had jut been called a demon; his priority was figuring out whether Annabelle had just been insulted or not.

I shrugged. "I have no idea."

Annabelle stood up and frowned at Bearer. "Why do you always call us names? We didn't do anything to you you meanie!"

Bearer glared at her and sent her hiding behind James. James growled and took a threatening step towards Bearer. Now the bastard didn't realize that he had a reason to be afraid of James because he didn't know that Lawson had a knife on him. Unfortunately, he stormed away before Lawson could pull it out and stab him with it. "Damn it," James muttered. He looked like he was ready to go chase after Paul.

"James no," Annabelle protested while vigorously shaking her head. "Don't."

James looked confused. "Why not? He deserves it."

"But you might get in trouble and get taken away!" Annabelle pointed out. "Cuz I was watchin' this show and someone stabbed someone else and then the police came and took them away in handcuffs. And that could happen to you!"

"But it won't happen to me."

"How do you know?"

"Cuz I'm Batman."

I rolled my eyes. That was a typical dumbass James response.

My door opened again and this time Mom came into the room. "Come on Glenn," she said, only giving me, Annabelle and James a nasty look before she looked at her pride and joy. "It's time for your piano lessons."

Glenn groaned as James snickered. "Aw Mom! I don't want to go! I hate the piano!"

"No you don't," Mom said, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him up to his feet. "Now come on. Mrs. Jarvis hates it when you're late."

I shook my head in disbelief as Glenn was dragged away. "Poor kid," I muttered. "Piano lessons have to fucking suck."

"Yeah well, there's nothing we can do to help him," James said, even though if there was anyone who could help someone escape piano lessons, it was us. "So let's get to what's important."

Annabelle frowned. "You're not still planning on trying to fly off the roof are you? Because even if you put on a cape that's not gonna work."

James shook his head. "Don't worry, I'm not going to do it." It was obvious that he was lying about that but we would address that issue at a later time. "There's something else we have to do."

"Well what is it?" I asked.

"Just come on, I'll show you," he said impatiently.

I looked at Annabelle, who just shrugged. I sighed and joined him and Annabelle in climbing out of my window and going to their house. "Do you have a death wish today Lawson?" I asked as we went in the back door. I was already bracing myself for Caroline or Joseph (or both) to come out of nowhere and start beating the shit out of us.

"The assholes are gone today," James replied. "The only one we have to worry about is Jacob."

Annabelle wrinkled her nose. "James, can you make Jacob start taking a bath? He's really starting to stink."

"Ew, he's not bathing anymore?" I asked in disgust.

James just shrugged. "How the fuck should I know? It's not like I pay attention to him at all." He led us into the kitchen and then grabbed a chair that he could stand on.

"What are you doing?" Annabelle asked in horror as he began getting into Caroline's booze cabinet. "Are you insane?"

"Jesus Christ James, get out of there!" I ordered. I couldn't believe what he was doing. I honestly believed he had a death wish right then and there. "Caroline is going to fucking _kill_ you if--"

"She won't find out," James said as he took out a bottle of whiskey. "Not if you two keep your mouths shut." He closed the cabinet before hopping down from the chair and returning it to its rightful place at the table. "Now come on. Let's go to my room in case one of the two stooges come home."

"Fucking idiot is what you are," I muttered under my breath as Annabelle and I followed him. I knew that I needed to put a stop to this before James did something he regretted, but I didn't because I was curious about what James was actually going to do. It was a curiosity that could definitely get me killed because nobody messed with Caroline's booze and got away from it, but I went with it anyway. I was a daredevil like that.

"Let's drink up Marky," James said after I had shut the door behind us. He unscrewed the bottle of whiskey and downed a good amount of it in one gulp. It made him cough like a mother fucker afterwards, but he seemed pleased with himself afterwards. "Here you go," he said as he handed it to Annabelle.

She sighed and took a whiff of it, which caused her to wrinkle her nose in disgust. "No way," she said automatically. "I'm not drinking that."

"Oh hell, give it here," I said. I snatched it away from her and took a big drink of it. It burned my throat as it went down and it made me feel all sick and dizzy afterwards. "This shit is nasty," I muttered as I passed it back to James.

"Yeah," he agreed. Of course that meant he took another drink of it."

Annabelle shook her head. "Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Mom is going to lose it if she--"

"Fuck her!" James said loudly, cutting Annabelle off. "Fuck that bitch! I fucking hate her and I don't fucking care what pisses her off anymore." He shook his head and muttered something under his breath that I couldn't understand before taking another drink.

"I'll drink to that," I said. Maybe it was a stupid thing to go along with but that first drink of whiskey had fucked me up pretty good. Caroline always drank really strong shit so it was no wonder that it was kicking our asses already. It wasn't like we had ever drank before that day.

"I'm going to go read," Annabelle said, quickly leaving the room.

I frowned. "What's her deal?"

James shrugged. "I guess she doesn't want to have fun today."

I accepted that answer and the two of us polished off the entire bottle of whiskey within an hour. By the time it was empty, the both of us were stumbling all around the house, completely drunk out of our minds. "We should goez somewhere," I slurred, tripping over my own feet and falling down the stairs.

James laughed at my expense before doing the very same thing. "Owies," he whined. "That hurted."

I somehow managed to get myself up to my feet and then pulled him up as well. "Come on," I growled. "We go now."

"We go where though?" he asked.

"I dunno."

He laughed and we spent the next several hours wandering around the city. I don't think either of us actually had an idea about where we were going to end up and quite frankly, we didn't really care. We just kept up our wandering until it pitch black and then we somehow found ourselves back at our house. "You know what would be cool?" James said eagerly.

"What?" I asked.

"Fire."

My drunk mind really liked the sound of that. "Come on Lawson," I said, grabbing him by the hand and dragging him to my garage. "Look! Look! I haz gasoline." I picked up the containers of gasoline my dad kept in there and cackled. "I loves the gasoline."

"Ooh let me have it!" James said eagerly.

"No!" I snapped. "It's mine!" I kicked him in the shin and went into the house. The lights were all off, meaning everyone was asleep. I smirked and began pouring the gasoline all over the first floor of the house, my drunken mind not even comprehending exactly what it was that I was doing. "Matches matches, where are my matches?" I muttered under my breath.

"Looking for these?" James asked, standing by the side door and waving the matches around in a taunting fashion.

"Gimmie those!" I ordered. I stormed over to him and tried to grab them but he kneed me in the stomach and pushed me aside. Before I could recover, he had lit one of the matches and thrown it on the gasoline covered floor, officially setting the house ablaze. "Fire fire fire!" he howled happily.

I got back up to my feet and punched him in the head for kneeing me in the gut. "Asshole," I muttered.

"Ow!" he yelled, having a severe delayed reaction. "Marky!"

"Come on, lets get out of here," I said. I dragged him out of the garage and we stumbled back to James's house. Joseph and Caroline were still gone so we went up to his room and passed out on his bed. A few hours later, Annabelle came in and woke us up. "What did you guys do?" she asked in a hushed voice.

I rubbed my eyes, still drunk out of my mind. "What are you talking about?"

"Your house got set on _fire_!" she said in exasperation. "Your parents are _dead_. Bearer had to take Glen to the hospital because he is all burned up! He could have _died_. And you two did it, didn't you?"

I looked at James, who seemed completely and totally lost. "Glenn got burned up?" I asked, feeling kind of bad. I hadn't even thought about Glenn still being in the house.

"Yeah," Annabelle replied. "People are saying his face got all burned up escaping the house…now what do you have to say for yourselves?"

"Uh….whoops?" James said innocently.

Annabelle huffed loudly and stormed off.

James looked confused. "Did I say something wrong?"

…

**Cooper note: Dad found out what Phil wrote at the end of the last chapter…Phil is now being dangled out a window. Ha, he's such a stupid bitch.**


	9. Fallout From the Fire

Fallout From the Fire

After the whole fire incident, Bearer was able to get custody of both Mark and Glenn. Mark was not pleased with that, especially since Bearer did everything he could to make Mark feel guiltier than he already did about burning Glenn up. Even though Bearer had no real evidence to officially accuse Mark or me for the fire, he was damn sure that we were the ones behind it and he made sure to let us know that every time he laid eyes on us. Fortunately, since he was usually busy with Glenn (who had to have a whole bunch of surgeries and skin grafts and a whole bunch of other shit done to fix his face and body), we didn't have to hear his crap all the time.

Of course, there were more downsides to the whole thing than just Bearer's bitching. For Mark, it was the fact that Bearer actually got him banned from the hospital Glenn was staying at, so he actually didn't get to see his own brother for months. As for me, the fat bastard got back at me in the worst way possible. It was so bad that I really did almost kill him for it. The mother fucker _told Caroline_ about the fire and his suspicion about my involvement. And while my mother didn't actually give a rat's ass about Glenn being turned into a crispy critter, she liked having any excuse to wail on me. It was how she got her rocks off after all.

The morning that she got the call from Bearer, I was in the living room watching television. Annabelle was upstairs sleeping, Jacob was eating (like usual) and nobody had any idea where Joseph was because he had walked out a week before and still hadn't returned. Gilligan's Island was about to start and I was reaching for the remote when I was completely blindsided by a glass figurine being chucked at me. The bastard thing hit me right upside the head, splitting me open and completely knocking me for a loop. "OW!" I yelled, immediately putting my hand up to the spot that just got hit. It only took a few seconds for my hand to be completely covered with my own blood.

"Oh quit being a pussy," Caroline snapped as she walked over to me. She had a cigarette dangling out of her mouth and she reeked of tobacco and stale booze. It was hard to tell whether she was drunk or sober because she acted the same either way. "You know who I just got off the phone with?" she asked as she got right in my face. "That stupid fat fuck--"

"I didn't call you you dumb bitch!" Joseph said defensively. He had just walked in the front door and had stumbled upon this little scene between Caroline and myself. "Why the fuck are you calling me names?"

Caroline gave him a look that would have scared Charles Manson. "I wasn't talking about _you_ you fucking retard! I was talking about--"

"Bitch, don't you start your shit with me!" Joseph snarled. "I'll--"

Caroline didn't wait for Joseph to finish. She took the object she had chucked at me and threw it at Joseph. It hit him right in the middle of his forehead, causing him to stumble back. Then she grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me to the basement, where she tossed my ass down the stairs. I not only smacked the back of my head really hard on the way down (which knocked me even more loopy than I had been to begin with) but I actually broke my arm by landing on it wrong during that fall.

"So you and Mark set his house on fire," she said as she came down the stairs. "You killed Mark's parents and burned up his poor little brother." She kicked me in the ribs as I tried to push myself back up to my feet. "You are one fucked up little brat, aren't you?" She kicked me in the ribs again. "All that killing…I should have you locked up for it. I could make sure they put you away for the rest of your pathetic life and I would never have to deal with you again." She pulled me up to my feet by my broken arm, which really fucking hurt. "You shouldn't have even been born," she said, looking at me with more hate and disgust than any one person should have in them. "I don't know why my parents wouldn't let me get that abortion. It would have saved everyone a whole bunch of trouble.

My response to that was cut off by a burning pain in the back of my neck. I had been so distracted by her words that I hadn't realized that she had taken the cigarette out of her mouth until she started burning me with it. I quickly yanked my injured arm out of her grasp and got the hell away from her.

"Oh what's wrong honey?" she asked, tilting her head to the side and acting like she didn't fucking know. "Can't you take the heat?" She actually laughed at her own joke. The sound was so hollow and evil that I still haven't found a way to suitably describe it.

"Fuck you!" I growled, backing the hell away from her. I needed to take my knife out and just kill her already but that wasn't what I was doing. I didn't really know why I wasn't doing it; maybe it was the shots to the head I had taken. They had rattled my brain pretty badly after all.

"Fuck me?" Caroline repeated. "No James, fuck you." She grabbed me by the hair and pulled me up so we were looking at each other eye to eye. "So fucking worthless…why do I even waste my time?"

Whether or not she answered her own question, I never found out. The next thing I knew, I was being launched head first into the wall. I bounced off it so violently that I was out before I even hit the floor. When I regained consciousness, I was in a hospital bed with Annabelle and Mark on either side of me. Apparently while I was out, Caroline had continued to kick the shit out of me before leaving me in the basement. Annabelle found me not long afterwards and when she couldn't wake me up, she enlisted the help of Mark to get me to the hospital.

My total list of injuries included a concussion, a broken arm, two cracked ribs, more bruises than I could count and a gash that needed sixteen stitches to close. The doctors not only wanted to keep me overnight for observation, but they tried to bring the police in on the situation. As soon as I found out though, I made Annabelle and Mark help me sneak out. I did not want to talk to the cops. I did not trust the cops even back then. And who could blame me? My murder count was up to five at that point. If I told them about Caroline, she could easily throw me under the bus and get me locked up somewhere. And not only would she do it, but she would _enjoy_ doing it. So even though I should have spoken up and said something, I didn't. I just went home and avoided Caroline as much as I could as I healed up--which meant that the psycho bitch from hell could continue her reign of terror without any interruptions.


	10. Mark Joins the Party

Mark Joins the Party (Mark)

After the incident with the fire and Caroline beating the ever loving shit out of James, we cooled it with the misbehaving until James was physically healed. Physically was the key word because he was far too damaged back then to do any mental or emotional healing. A lot of people have speculated about the amount of damage Caroline did to him over the years, but only me and Annabelle understood the real extent of it.

Truth be told, even though both of his parents abused him, James never cared when it came from Joseph. He hated the fat bastard and wanted him dead, but nothing Joseph did ever stuck with him the way Caroline's bullshit did. Despite how much he hated her (and believe me, he hated her in a way I never thought possible), he wanted her to love him just as badly. He's never admitted this (and never will) but it's the only explanation I can come up with as to why he waited so long to kill her. Both Joseph and Jacob kicked the bucket way before she did…but really, that's a story for another day. Let's get this subject back to what we were originally supposed to talk about.

**Cooper note: He only wants to get back on topic because it's about him today. He's a self centered prick like that.**

What did you just write boy? Ah fuck it, I'm not getting into it with you today. Let's just fast forward though a couple years of bullshit and get to Halloween 1976. I was supposed to go to school that day, but I convinced Glenn to cut with me so we could hang out with James and Annabelle. Bearer was still trying to keep the two of us apart, but I was throwing as many monkey wrenches as I could in that plan. Things still hadn't been right between me and Glenn because of the fire, so I was still attempting to make things okay again. It wasn't exactly going the way I wanted to, but by then I was making at least some progress with patching things up (Bearer had told him that it was me and James that had started the fire and he had figured out I was lying when I said it wasn't).

When we got to James's house, we found Joseph sitting on the porch drinking some beer. "What the fuck are you two doing here?" he grunted when he saw us.

"None of your business," I snapped, making sure to shield Glenn from his view as much as I could. Glenn was still a few surgeries away from looking most of the way normal and I knew he was sensitive to people making fun of him (which Joseph would so totally do).

"It is my business," Joseph growled. He looked ready to get out of his chair and pop me right in the mouth. "This is my fucking house and I want to know everything that's--hey, get back here! I'm talking to you!"

In the middle of his little rant, I had simply grabbed Glenn by the hand and pulled him into the house. "James?" I called out, hoping he was right there waiting for me. The sooner Glenn and I got out of there, the better.

"Sssshhh! You're going to make Mom mad!"

I looked over at the couch and saw that Jacob was sitting there. "That bitch is always mad about something," I pointed out.

Jacob gave me a nervous look. He looked so much like Joseph that it was uncanny and irritating. "Yeah but James mouthed off to her earlier and she really got mad at him."

I groaned. That was the last thing I had wanted to hear. "How badly did she fuck him up?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. He hasn't come out of his room for two hours now."

"Shit." I grabbed Glenn and dragged him upstairs, hoping that we didn't run into Caroline on the way.

"I don't like it here," Glenn grumbled as I pulled him along. "Caroline is going to kill us if she finds us here."

I shook my head. "She won't. I won't let her." I got us up to James's room without being seen and knocked on his door as quietly as I could. "James?"

There was nothing coming from the other side for what felt like forever. Just as I was starting to think he wasn't actually in there anymore, Annabelle opened the door and ushered us into the room. "Keep it down," she warned us. "If Mom hears you we're all dead."

"What the hell happened?" I asked as I looked over at James. He was sitting on the bed with his knees drawn all the way up to his chest. "Jacob said--"

"The fucker needs to mind his own business," James growled. He was absolutely refusing to make any eye contact with me. It wasn't until I walked to the other side of the bed and saw the claw marks all near his eye that I understood what had happened. "Jesus fucking Christ," I muttered. "What the fuck did that bitch do?"

"It doesn't matter," James snapped. He got off the bed and slipped his shoes on. "None of it fucking matters."

Annabelle sighed and went over to him so she could wrap her arms around him. He didn't try to push her away, but he didn't exactly hug her back. "Let's get out of here," she suggested. "It's Halloween. We can go out and eat candy and have some fun."

"Yeah," I agreed, casting a look towards his door. This was one of the rare occasions that Annabelle and I were on the same page. "Forget the cunt Lawson. Let's just get the fuck out of here."

James nodded, but we could all tell he really wasn't with us. Despite that though, we decided to ignore that fact and sneak out his window and go to the nearest drug store. I had stolen a whole bunch of money from Bearer before Glenn and I had left so I bought us some Coke, two giant bags of candy and Halloween costumes. Annabelle was a princess, James was a pirate and Glenn and I went with good old fashioned monster masks. "Those things are creepy," Annabelle complained as we walked around aimlessly. We were going past all the casinos and shit, and there was the temptation to sneak in there just to see if we could get away with it. But on that day, we resisted the temptation and kept going on our way.

"Oh quit being a wuss," I said in exasperation. I growled at a couple of old ladies who happened to be walking by and managed to scare the crap out of them. That made me laugh my ass off and it almost made James grin.

"I think they're cool," Glenn said. "They hide my ugliness."

Annabelle gave him a sympathetic look. "You're not ugly," she told him. "Don't think like that."

"Yeah," James said. "You're only deep fried. There's a big difference."

"James!" Annabelle exclaimed, giving him a look that shut him right the hell up.

Glenn hung his head and I decided to change the subject as fast as I could before anyone else's feelings got hurt. "I had a dream last night," I said, moving my mask up enough to allow me to shove some candy into my mouth.

"Congratulations," Annabelle said, now glaring at me for no reason I could think of. "Everyone has dreams. Tell us something more interesting."

I raised my eyebrows. "I wasn't talking to you." I looked past her and focused on James. "Wanna know what I dreamt about?"

"Was it about my mother dropping dead?"

"No, that was the one I had last week. This one involved me…" I looked around to see if there was anyone around trying to eavesdrop on us. When I saw that there wasn't, I went ahead and said it. "I dreamt about killing someone."

James raised his eyebrows while Glenn and Annabelle gave me uneasy looks. I smirked and focused only on James, hoping I could cheer him up with what I was about to say next. "I want to do it," I declared. "I want to kill someone."

The very beginnings of a smile began to appear on James's face. "Are you serious?" He had been trying to get me to join him on his homicidal adventures, but until then, I hadn't really felt like doing it.

"Uh huh," I confirmed.

Something suddenly hit me on the back of the head, and when I turned around I realized that it was Glenn who had done it. "What the hell was that for?" I asked angrily.

"You're an idiot," Glenn declared before storming off.

Annabelle shook her head at us before taking off after him. "What the hell is their problem?" James asked.

I shrugged. "Who cares?" I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into a nearby alley. I figured that the two of them could keep themselves out of trouble long enough for me and James to do what we needed to do. "Just help me out here, will ya?"

He finally did give me a real grin. "Yeah okay," he agreed. He began looking around for someone I could take out. "Oh little victim….come out come out wherever you are…"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh yes, like they're willingly going to come out to face their death. Come on Lawson, get real for a second."

He pouted. "I am real. You're just being a grouchy pants."

"Whatever." There wasn't anyone I could kill where we were at, so we wandered around until we finally stumbled upon someone. It was a blind homeless guy that was holding out a cracked coffee mug and had a golden retriever laying by him. The dog began to growl when it saw us coming, which alerted the man of our presence.

"Who's there?" he asked, looking around even though he couldn't see a fucking thing.

James snickered before handing me his knife and grabbing the dog by the collar and dragging it away so it wouldn't keep barking. I got right in front of the blind man, smirking in amusement as he got up to his feet and began reaching out for me. I leaned back just a bit, not wanting his dirty hands on my skin. I could feel James watching me, expecting me to just go ahead and do it quick. But I waited for just a bit, not because I was having second thoughts, but because I was trying to savor the moment.

When I did finally strike, it was pretty quick and effective for my first kill. I buried the blade right into his side, causing him to let out a cry of pain. I let the knife stay in there just a little as he stumbled forward but then I ripped it back out and shoved him down to the ground. I wasn't getting the euphoria that James often claimed to get when he offed someone, but it wasn't like I was getting any bad feelings from it either. In fact, there was a very nice feeling of satisfaction on my part because I was finally sating my own curiosity.

Once he was on the ground, the blind man started trying to crawl away. I sneered down at him before kicking him in the ribs a couple of times, egged on as James cackled in the background. When kicking him got boring, I started stabbing him again, trying to bury the knife into every inch of his back. I also tried to keep track of how many times I was stabbing him, but I got distracted after ten stabs and lost count completely.

"Marky? Are you done yet? I think I hear someone coming."

I finally stopped with the stabbing, wincing as my exhausted arm began to cramp up on me. I looked at James, who was giving me an eager look. "Well?" he said, anxious to hear my answer.

I grinned and gave him back his knife. I only had one thing to say.

"Let's do that again."


	11. Little Girl Lost

Little Girl Lost (Annabelle)

**Cooper note: I locked Connor in the attic last night for trying to break my stereo and he ended up finding Mom's diary in there. And after much discussion, it's been decided that we're going to put a little bit of stuff from the diary into the book, mainly just because she's like the only Lawson ever not to be a homicidal nutcase. And this book needs that. It's going to give it depth (or some shit like that).**

July 17, 1977

Mom and Dad are fighting again. I don't know what it's about this time but I'm hiding in my closet, using a flashlight to help me write in here. The screaming is at least muffled in here. Now I just wish James would hide in here with me. Every time Mom and Dad get into one of these arguments they beat one of us up if they can get to us. And I'm sure James is down there, watching the whole thing because…well I don't know why. I can't explain a lot of the things my twin does. I don't know why he kills people, I don't know why he's friends with dickface Mark, I don't know why he's mean poor sweet Glenn…but I do know that he loves me, so I don't care that I don't understand him. It's nice being loved by someone, even if he is kind of crazy.

Uh oh. I hear Dad screaming at the top of his lungs now and it sounds like someone is getting hit. I can't tell who it is, and to be honest, as long as it isn't James, I don't really care who it is.

Sometimes I wish I was fairy tale princess so I could have Prince Charming take me away and we could live happily ever after. But as Mark so kindly pointed out *note sarcasm…and my growly face*, that is a completely stupid and idiotic thought. Wishing for fairy tales was only going to disappoint you because they weren't real. There was no Prince Charming and there was nobody that could really save the day. I didn't like thinking like that but it was the truth and I couldn't really escape from it.

July 18, 1977

I don't want to get up anymore. I just want to lay in bed and never get up again. Breakfast was hell today. As soon as I got into the kitchen, Mom looked at me like she wanted to kill me. "What the hell are you wearing?" she asked as I sat down.

I looked down at my t-shirt and jeans. I couldn't see anything wrong with my clothes except for the fact that they were too small. I needed new outfits really badly but Mom and Dad wouldn't buy me any. I was going to have to have James steal me some before I outgrew my stuff completely.

Mom glared at me a little bit more before turning her attention to James. He was in need for new clothes even more than I was. A few months ago he had started growing really really fast, and now he was just as tall as Mom was, leaving me as the shortest person in the family.

"Why are you glaring at me?" James asked, already in a foul mood himself for some unknown reason. "I didn't do anything!"

She smacked him on the back of the head for daring to speak before going back to her morning cocktail.

Dad came storming in next and when he saw that there was no food on the table, he really lost his shit. "Damn it Caroline, we talked about this!" he growled.

Mom only smirked coldly. "I'm not a cook Joseph. I've told you that a THOUSAND times already. It's not my fault you're too stupid to get the message."

That earned her a slap right to the face, but it barely even fazed her. She just grabbed her drink and stormed out of the room, leaving the rest of us on our own. "That fucking bitch," Dad growled. He looked at me, his eyes going straight to my chest and making me sink down in my seat. I hated it when he stared at me like that. I had started puberty about a month ago and as soon as he started noticing my development, it's like he can't keep his eyes off of me. It's very creepy and I really wish he would stop.

"Make us something to eat," he finally grunted at me, sitting down next to Jacob.

"She's not your slave," James growled, starting shit even though I was already getting up out of my seat. "She shouldn't have to cook you anything."

Dad glared at him. "Don't you start your shit with me boy."

"Why not? I ain't scared of you."

I groaned and shook my head frantically. "James stop," I pleaded. "It's okay, I can--"

"You will fucking be scared of me by the time I get done with you," Dad threatened.

"Oh yeah?" James popped Dad right in the face, which started the usual fist fight that always took place between the two of them first thing in the morning. I quickly backed into the corner and sank down to the floor, putting my hands over my ears and closing my eyes in order to try to block out all the noise. That didn't really work out so well because I almost got hit by a glass that Dad threw. So I got that the hell out of there and came to hide in my room. Again. Fuck, I'm always in here hiding. Hiding from Mommy and Daddy because it's not safe to be out there with them. Always hiding….hiding hiding hiding…

July 20, 1977

I hate Mark. I really do. Today James and I went swimming with him and Glenn and he threw mud at me because James was paying more attention to me than to him. Like it's my fault James didn't want me to drown. Ugh. Mark is such an ass to me. I don't know why because I've never done anything to him. I mean I try to be nice…but he's always just…ick. I wish James didn't like him so much. But I know I won't ever tell him this. At least I don't think I will. James gets upset because Mark and I don't get along so I'm not adding more fuel to the fire if I can help it.

"Why can't you just lay off her Mark?" James asked as I tried to wipe the mud off of me with my towel.

"Why can't you just leave her in the shallow end by herself?" Mark asked, avoiding the question he had been asked.

"She's not a good at swimming Marky. I told you that."

"She ain't gonna drown in waist deep water!"

"Well…it makes her nervous."

Mark groaned. "You are so whipped Lawson. You gotta teach her how to swim like my granddaddy taught me."

"Oh yeah? How did your granddaddy teach you?"

"Like this." Mark grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder, not putting me down until he threw me into the deep end of the pool. I immediately started panicking when my head went under water. I inhaled a good lungful of water as I fought my way back up to the surface, immediately grateful when James grabbed a hold of me and pulled me out of the pool.

"Mark! That was mean!" Glenn scolded.

Mark chuckled as I coughed and gasped for breath. I was seriously about to throw up here and he was actually laughing at me. "Oh come on, how else is she going to learn?" he asked, trying to act like he wasn't an asshole.

James growled and speared Mark down to the ground, which started a major wrestling match between the two of them. I hardly paid any attention to them though. I was just trying not to cry because I will not EVER let him know how much he truly bothers me. I won't give him that satisfaction.

July 24th 1977

I can't sleep in my own room anymore. I have to sleep in James's bed from now on. James doesn't mind but he wants to know why, which is something I'm afraid to tell him. If I tell him the truth, he's going to go insane and do something that could get him a whole lot of trouble later on. But if I don't tell him…well, I don't know. I don't know what Dad will do. Hopefully he only tried to do it because he was so drunk…

Last night when I was asleep he came into my room. I think he thought I was sleeping but I was up reading a book. Anyway, he came in and stared at me in a way that made me really uncomfortable. "Do you need something?" I finally asked.

Dad grunted and took off his jacket. "You're getting big," he said, stumbling over his own two feet. He reeked of stale booze and cheap cigarettes. "So big. And so pretty. You know what that means don't ya?"

I gulped as I watched him begin unbuttoning his shirt. I wasn't entirely sure what he was rambling on about but I was quite certain I didn't want to know. "No," I said nervously. "I don't know what that means."

"That means you need to learn what a woman is good for." He made an attempt to grab me but I quickly rolled out of the way and managed to run out of the room. I went into James's room where it was safe and I haven't come out since. And if Dad's going to act like that, I don't ever want to come out of here again. God only knows what will happen if he actually gets his hands on me next time.


	12. Stolen Kisses

Stolen Kisses (James)

I need to get something off my chest: I am a horny bastard. I always have been and I always will be.

**Cooper's note: Oh dear Jesus…that is not the way I wanted to start off this chapter. I knew I should have gotten Glenn to write this part.**

Don't make that face Cooper. I have sex. Lots and lots of sex. You knew this already.

**Cooper's note: I'm going to kill him. I really am.**

Anyways, let me get to the point I'm trying to make. When most people hit puberty shit, they get pimples and are all awkward and shit. With me though, I grew about seven inches within the span of two moths and my hormones hit me like they were a semi-truck or something. Seriously, it was fucking insane. They made me have all sorts of dreams about Annabelle and Mark---very intense, sexual dreams that caused all sorts of awkward moments when Annabelle started sleeping in my room every single night.

"You were moaning in your sleep again," Annabelle complained one morning after a particularly sleepless night for her. It was the day after Labor Day and we were already late for school, just like we usually were.

"I was?" I asked, trying to play innocent. I hadn't got out of bed yet because I was still hard from my dream, and considering that it already poked her on the leg and woke her up, I didn't think that she was in the mood to see it at the moment.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "You kept saying both mine and Mark's name over again…I don't even want to know what you were dreaming about."

"Are you sure?"

"Oh yeah. It sounded disturbing."

I pouted. I didn't think it was disturbing at all. Sure it was a little weird having her and Mark get along so well…most of the time they even hated each other in my dreams. "Meanie. What if I really needed to talk to you about it? Huh? What if it was super duper important and could alter my life forever?"

She sighed and started standing on one foot so she could put her shoe on the other one. "James please, you're being overdramatic. You having…whatever icky dreams you're having is not going to alter your life forever. It's just going to make you horny and make for my awkward mornings for me if I continue to sleep in your bed."

"Speaking of which, why are you sleeping in my bed now?" I asked, deciding to take the topic of conversation away from my wet dreams.

Annabelle tried to look innocent, which was not a good sign. She was a horrible liar; like seriously, she couldn't tell a lie if her life depended on it. "No reason," she said, trying to sound casual. "I just…I like company."

I tilted my head to the side. "Really? Are you sure that it has nothing to do with Dad staring at you like an asshole?"

She froze, which meant I had hit the nail right on the head. I growled angrily, hating that I was right about this. "I'm going to kill him."

"No," she said automatically. She finally managed to get her one shoe on and now she was trying to get the other one on. "You can't."

"Oh yes I can," I said. I reached under my pillow and grabbed my knife. "Watch me."

She shook her head frantically, abandoning her efforts to get her shoe on in order to convince me why our pig of a father should live. "People aren't going to ignore the fact that Daddy's gone. They're going to ask questions."

"You said the same thing after I killed Grandpa," I pointed out. "And nobody said a damn thing then."

"You got lucky then! James please, what if Mom finds out about it and uses it as an excuse to get rid of you? I'll be all alone with her and I can't handle that. She'll fucking kill me."

"I won't let that happen," I assured her. I threw back the covers and started to get up, fully intending on making good with my promise. But before I could get all the way to my feet, she actually jumped on me and started trying to hold me down.

"James please, just leave it alone," she begged, trying (and failing) to pin me down. I wasn't fighting her all that hard but she really wasn't that strong. "Please please please please don't do something stupid and get taken away from me. Please please please please don't--"

"Alright alright!" I reluctantly agreed. I hated it when she begged. It always made me give in to things I didn't want to give into. "I won't do anything stupid." This was an absolutely useless promise to make, but hey, I tried. I might not have tried that hard, but at least I tried.

She relaxed at my words, but made no move to get up. That led to a very long and tense moment where she just kept sitting on me and I just stared at her, flashes of my dreams about her going through my mind. I knew incest was supposed to be wrong. Hell, in most cases, I agree with that belief because a lot of the time it's about abuse and power. But that wasn't how it was with my thoughts about her. I never wanted to hurt her…I just wanted to be connected with one of the two people on the fucking planet that actually gave a shit about me.

Without really thinking about what I was doing, I sat up all the way and kissed her right then and there. Her eyes just about popped out of her head, and for a moment I really thought that she was going to push me away. But after some hesitation, she began kiss me back. I'm not sure how long we kissed exactly…it felt like forever but at the same time it also felt like just a couple of seconds…I know that doesn't make sense but hey, I'm not known for doing that. Sue me.

Anyway, Annabelle was the one who broke the kiss. "We can't do this," she told me. She quickly got up and slipped her other shoe up. "We can't…I can't…we should go. We're late."

"Belle---" I groaned as she hurried out of the room. That hadn't exactly ended the way I had wanted it to.

Later that day, when I was hiding out in the bathroom with Mark so I wouldn't have to take a science quiz, I decided to tell him about what had happened in my bedroom. To say he wasn't pleased about it would be an understatement.

"Dude, why the fuck would you kiss her?" he asked me, looking at me like I was completely and totally insane. Which I was (and am) but that's not the point.

"Because I wanted to," I answered. I tilted my head to the side and studied his face closely. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail and the sun streaming in through the windows made it look like a really bright shade of orange. "Why do you care? You kissed Jenny Swanson last week because you wanted to."

"You actually noticed that?" he asked in surprise. "I thought you were too busy with _her_ to notice." The "her" in question was Annabelle, and I had to sigh and shake my head at him.

"Jealousy is an ugly color on you Marky," I informed him.

He huffed loudly. "I am not jealous!" he exclaimed.

"Oh yeah? Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm sure." He tried to walk away from me, but I grabbed him and pushed him up against the wall. He snarled loudly before grabbing my shirt and pulling me in for a kiss…or maybe he was trying to bite my lips off that day. I don't know. Either way, it was really fucking rough and I really fucking liked it. It was the complete opposite of my kiss with Annabelle and that was what I liked about it. It was all rough and demanding…

**Cooper note: EW EW EW EW EW! SOMEONE SAVE ME DAMN IT!**

Of course, we had to get interrupted by the principal…fucking prude…

**Cooper note: Thank fucking God. I couldn't take more description of that shit.**

But it was too late. I was hooked. Completely and totally hooked.

**Cooper note: Ugh…I'm ending this here. He looks like he's about to swoon over Taker and I'm about to barf about it.**


	13. The Wrestling Bug

The Wrestling Bug (Mark)

Junior high was when I really got into wrestling. Before then, I would occasionally find whatever was on locally on TV and watch it, but it never really got my full attention before I met Jerry Anderson. He was a nerdy looking kid who was in my math class and I almost beat him up one day when I noticed that he had a shit tone of wrestling magazines. A lot of the wrestlers on the cover were all bloody and shit, so that really piqued my interest. I ended up asking him about it and in exchange for not beating the crap out of him every day for my own entertainment, he would get me not only all the wrestling magazines I wanted, but he would get me the tapes from promotions all around the word. His father was a promoter up in San Francisco, so he had enough connections in the tape trading department to keep us well stocked in anything and everything we wanted. NWA, AWA, WWWF (this was back before it was even the WWF), World Class Championship Wrestling-the list went on and on.

I used to drive James nuts by making him watch the tapes with me. As much as Glenn and I got into the whole thing, he never really cared for it quite as much. Sure he liked the blood and stuff, but the fact that the guys in the ring weren't really trying to kill him always confused him. He didn't see why anyone would stop when they pinned their opponent for three seconds and he hated that the referees were always trying to control shit.

"Marky come on," he said to me about a week before Halloween. "I don't want to watch wrestling tonight." He grabbed me by the hand and began trying to pull me off the couch. "I want to go out and kill someone."

"You always want to go kill someone," I pointed out, trying to fight him off. "We can do that later. Right now I want to watch this."

He whined and stomped his foot. He was and always has been a needy little bitch. "Marky! This is not fair!" He almost stormed out in anger but then a little devilish gleam entered his eyes. Before I could stop him, he jumped on top of me and started kissing me and shit.

**Cooper note: ….DAMN IT! NOT AGAIN! I need Glenn to write this shit, I swear to Gold…**

Now I tried to push him off at first but James can be uh…very persuasive. It's all in the lips. And the hands. The psycho knows how to use his hands.

**Cooper note: …*FACEPALM***

But just as stuff really started getting good between the two of us, Bearer decides to walk in on us. And apparently he does not like us making out on the couch. "Heathens!" he yelled in that bitchy little voice of his. "Disgusting heathens! Get out!" He actually started picking up shit and tossing it at us. And he was tossing it hard too. He just about killed James with a lamp.

"What the fuck dude?" James yelled as he barely avoided the lamp I just talked about.

"You will not fornicate on this couch!" Bearer hollered as he tossed something else at us.

James frowned in confusion. "Fornicate? I don't even know what that means!"

"It means have sex you idiot!" I yelled as I grabbed him and got us the hell out of there. At that point, I knew we had to get the fuck for awhile. I just couldn't take it anymore. Between Bearer, Joseph and Caroline, James and I weren't getting a moment's peace and my wrestling always seemed to get interrupted. But luckily for me, I had a plan. A perfect plan that would be a nice getaway with James.

….And Annabelle, which was the perfect aspect fell apart completely. James refused to leave her behind. Fucking twins…

**Cooper note: I'm gonna punch this mother fucker in the face, I swear to God.**

"Madison Square Garden?" Annabelle repeated once we were on the bus. James had stolen about eight hundred bucks from his dad so we had more than enough money for this trip. "What's there?"

"Superstar Billy Graham is defending his title against Bruno Sammartino," I replied without looking up from my magazine. "We have to go see it."

"We have to?" James asked with a sigh.

"Yes, we have to." I finally looked up from my magazine and gave him an irritated look. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"Yeah," he replied, but he didn't say anything more than that. He and Annabelle both knew that fighting with me about this was absolutely pointless. I was getting what I wanted and that was all there was to it.

The rest of the bus ride went okay…flight went alright despite Annabelle getting sick…which meant something had to go wrong once we got to New York. In retrospect, I really should have expected it. New York was a very dangerous place back in the 1970s. The city was still recovering from the Son of Sam's rampage. Add in the high rates of crime and the fact that we were three twelve year olds running around without supervision, we were lucky that we didn't get killed.

Now as we were trying to find our way to a hotel, three assholes grabbed us and dragged us into an alley. Now I don't know if they wanted to kill us or force us to be prostitutes or just mug us, but they messed with the wrong people. As soon as Annabelle was touched, James went absolutely nuts. He stabbed the guy who had him on the leg and then slit his throat before bludgeoning Annabelle's grabber with his knife. The guy who had me was so taken aback by what James was doing that I was able to knee the guy in the groin and get free. Now my first instinct was to just off the guy, but then I got another idea.

"What the hell are you doing?" James asked incredulously as I grabbed the guy and barely got him lifted up in the air. He was quite a bit bigger than me and I didn't have all the strength that I have now.

"This," I replied, giving the guy a piledriver. I had always wanted to try to that out on someone, and even though I botched it horribly and probably paralyzed him, it didn't matter. I ended up stabbing him two minutes later so it was all good.

"This was a stupid idea," Annabelle whimpered as she clung to James fearfully.

"Nonsense," I said. "That was fun." I looked at James and grinned. "Let's do it again!"

**Cooper note: So…wow. Marky was a bit of a retard back then. Good to know.**


	14. The Beginning, Part One

The Beginning, Part One (James)

It seemed that as time went on, Joseph and Caroline's marriage got worse and worse. Of course that meant mine and Annabelle's home life started getting worse and worse. A lot of the time the both of us started staying over with Mark, mainly because we would rather take Bearer's verbal abuse instead of the physical, emotional and mental hell we were enduring at home.

On one of the rare occasions we were home, I was up in my room , pacing around and being absolutely furious. I had come home to find my snake Poison chopped up and on my bed and I knew that it was Caroline who had done it. Joseph was terrified of snakes and it took too much out of Jacob to even make it up the stairs at this point. "Fucking bitch," I muttered unhappily. I had gotten rid of Poison's remains and was now trying to think of what I should do next. Caroline was passed out on the couch, just prime for a good stabbing. The only question was, why wasn't I down there doing it already? I didn't understand it. I wanted her dead so fucking badly. It would certainly make my life a hell of a lot easier. But every time I headed towards that door, I hesitated and then went back to my pacing. What was I doing? Why was I stopping myself? I tried to think of a logical reason but I couldn't. It was just…hell I don't know. It wasn't a logical feeling, that was sure.

As I was pacing around and thinking about all this, Annabelle came into the room without knocking. "James?" she said quietly, wringing her hands together and looking at me anxiously.

I stopped pacing and gave her a concerned look. "What's wrong?" I asked. The look on her face was really concerning me. "What happened?"

She just shook her head and locked the door behind her. "Nothing," she lied, frowning when she saw that my sheets and blanket were not on my bed. "Where did-"

"Mom killed Poison and left him there," I explained. "It's all in the washer. And I don't believe you you know. You're not a good liar."

She sighed and slowly sank down to the floor. "I know," she muttered. She rested her head back against the door and looked at me helplessly. "It's a flaw."

"It's not a flaw," I told her as I walked over and sat down next to her. "It's a good thing. I need to be able to know when something is wrong with you." I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her closer to me. "Now what's bothering you?"

She didn't answer me at first. She just huddled closer to me, staring at her lap and thinking carefully. "I'm scared," she finally confessed.

"Scared of what?" I started trying to force her to look at me. "Belle you're freaking me out. Did someone threaten you? Do I have to kill them? Because I will. You know that."

She shook her head. "It's not just one person James. It's almost _everyone_. I go to school and I have my anxiety attacks and everyone thinks that I'm a freak who needs to go away and I want to stop but I can't. God help me I can't. Mom and Dad have hurt me and you so much that I have absolutely no reason to think that everyone around us won't do the same thing. I mean, if our own parents can hate us and want us to die, can you imagine how other people feel?"

"Mark and Glenn-"

"Mark hates me and wishes I would go away," Annabelle pointed out. "And Glenn hates you for the whole fire thing." She looked away from me and I knew instantly that she was probably going to cry soon. "I just can't stand it anymore. I really can't. Being here makes me feel like I can't breathe. I can't stand just waiting for the next shouting match or the next hit…" She stopped for a second so she could take several deep breaths. "Mom's out on the couch talking in her sleep. She's talking to the both of us and you don't even want to hear the things she's saying." She shuddered and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Is it really that bad?" I asked, trying to ignore the sudden stabbing pain in my heart.

She nodded.

That hurt. It really did. If Caroline was saying horrible shit in her sleep, it meant that she honestly and truly did really fucking hate us. "Where's Joseph?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Out," Annabelle replied. "I think he's looking for a virgin."

I rolled my eyes. Joseph's taste in girls was absolutely disgusting and it made me want to kill him that much more. "Fucker," I muttered.

"I know," she agreed. "But…God, would it sound terrible if I said I was glad he was out there instead of here?"

I shrugged. "Do you want my definition of terrible or society's? I mean, I kind of view things differently than most people."

"Good point," she muttered. She wiped her eyes again and rested her head against my shoulder. "I don't want him to hurt those girls. I really don't. But sometimes when he looks at me…I just get so freaked out."

I clenched my fists tightly. I understood exactly why she felt that way. Joseph was a fucking pervert. He liked raping virgins because it not only stole their innocence, but it stole their power from them. Power he couldn't steal from us…at least not Mom or me. Annabelle on the other hand…I shuddered at the thought. "He won't ever hurt you like that," I promised. "I won't let him."

She shook her head. "You're not always going to be around to stop him. And what if it's not just him? What if there are other people who want to hurt me like that?" She ran her hand through her hair. "God I sound like such a pathetic paranoid baby."

"You don't," I assured her.

"No I do," she insisted. "I'm such a fucking baby and I can't-"

I couldn't stand listening to her put herself down. I just couldn't. She was too beautiful to be down like this. Without stopping to think about whether I was doing the right thing or not, I kissed her on the lips, deepening that kiss when she began to respond. For several minutes we just sat there, not doing anything but making out. When we broke apart for air though, we stared at each other for the longest time. No words had to be said for us to understand each other. I don't know whether it's a twin thing or not, but we were always able to know what the other one was thinking with just a look. At that moment I was trying to make sure she really wanted to do this and she was giving me a look that clearly said that at least this one time, she needed to be in the arms of someone she trusted completely.

I got up before scooping her into my arms and carrying her over to my bed. Honestly, I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. I mean watching bad seventies pornos was one thing, but this was something else entirely. This was real life and there were a fuck of a lot more emotions involved in this. I loved Annabelle deeply. I really did. Maybe I was a freak for loving and wanting and needing her in more ways than a brother should ever need his sister but I didn't and still don't care. I really don't. Nobody can ever really understand what she really meant to me. I try to explain it, but I never really am ever able to get it right.

After we were done we laid cuddled together on the bed, completely exposed because of my lack of blankets. "We shouldn't have done that," Annabelle said softly.

I was hurt by that. "You didn't like it?"

"It's not that….people are going to think we're freaks though."

"So? They already do."

That very valid point failed to put her at ease. "What if I get pregnant?" she asked. "I'm not on birth control and you didn't use a condom."

I shrugged. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." It was easy for me to blow that worry off because it seemed so far fetched. I don't know why it was so far fetched to me then, but it was. I was a dumb little shit like that.

She sighed and closed her eyes. "You don't worry enough."

"Well you worry too much." I kissed her neck gently. "I love you though."

"Really?"

"Really."

She finally smiled a true smile. "I love you too."

"Forever?"

"Forever and ever."


	15. the Beginning, Part Two

The Beginning, Part Two (Mark)

**Phil note: Due to the nature of this chapter, it was decided that I should write it instead of Cooper. This was done to save time, effort and Cooper's sanity. Unfortunately I lost my own sanity in the typing of this so anyone reading this better enjoy it, or I'm coming to your house and having Glenn set it on fire. Typing this smut has warped my fragile little mind.**

…

I knew that James slept with Annabelle without even having to be told. It wasn't like it took a rocket scientist to tell that something was radically different between the two of them. The way they looked at each other, the way they touched even when it was the most innocent of things…I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. Seeing James with Annabelle always had that effect on me. I couldn't help myself. I wanted James all to myself. But since I knew for a fact that hell would freeze over before James gave Annabelle up, I just got pissed and purposefully made out with some random twat in the cafeteria for the whole school to see. Of course that pissed James off, which led to quite a colorful confrontation when he cornered me at my house

"What the hell were you thinking?" he asked me angrily, grabbing the remote and shutting off the television. We had been planning on watching a movie while Glenn dragged Annabelle to the park (and yes, drag is the appropriate term; Annabelle and public places were not a common mix back then).

"What are you talking about?" I asked innocently. I was playing dumb strictly to piss him off and it worked like a charm.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about," he growled. He looked ready to grab me by the throat and start strangling me. Oddly enough, seeing him all riled up like that actually turned me on. It was nice to know I had that kind of affect on him. "You were kissing that bitch!" Now he actually said her real name but I can't remember what it even was so we're going to pretend he said bitch.

"So what if I was?" I said defiantly. I couldn't stop egging him on now. I had to see how far I could push him. "What is it to you?"

"She's a complete skank!"

I almost told him that Annabelle was too, but I quickly stopped myself. I wanted him to be riled up, not homicidal. "Hey, you're running around doing whatever it is you do with Annabelle. Why can't I do the same thing with someone else?"

Now if you know James, you know that cranky look he gets in his eyes whenever someone tries using that kind of argument on him. "That's completely different Marky," he insisted stubbornly. "You know that."

"Yeah. You think it's different because it's you." I got up off the couch so I could go get a beer. Bearer wasn't home so we had the whole house to ourselves. That turned out to be the best damn thing for us that day because he would have had a conniption fit if he walked in on us that day.

"It's different because I love Annabelle," James informed me as he followed me into the kitchen. "You don't love that skank. You probably just got a disease from kissing her."

I had to laugh at that. "You're jealous!" I said happily.

"Jealous? I am not."

"You are too. And it's adorable." I liked knowing that I could make him feel jealous. I spent the majority of my time being jealous of Annabelle so this was a nice change of pace.

James scowled. "You're an asshole."

"So sue me." I grabbed my beer and started to close the refrigerator door when I was shoved back first into the counter. I started to ask James what the hell he was doing when he literally smashed our lips together. I immediately started kissing back has hard as I could, grabbing him by the shirt and pushing him all the way back so he was up against the table. I tried to lay him down on it but he resisted and we ended up slamming each other into everything we could, breaking several things before making our way out of the room.

"Upstairs," I grunted, pulling my swollen lips off of his so I could say that. I could taste blood but I had no idea whose it was. "Now."

"Too far," James disagreed. He ripped open my shirt and raked his nails down my chest, licking up the blood immediately afterwards.

I had to agree with him now. Upstairs was too far away. "Whatever," I muttered, kissing him again and trying to blindly help him get our clothes off. It was a lot harder than it needed to be for some reason, but we finally did manage it. "Hey!" he objected as I speared him down on to the couch and barely managed to get his hands pinned down above his head. "Let go!"

"Nah," I refused. "We both know you don't want that." Without any kind of warning or preparation, I slammed myself into him as hard as I could. He growled and immediately got his hands free, but he used them to pull me closer, leaving long bloody scratch marks on my back in the process. I hissed in pain, but I didn't stop to really dwell on it. I just kissed James and fucked him as hard as I could, not giving a damn that Glenn and Annabelle could walk in on us at any moment. An audience wasn't going to stop this. This had been brewing for quite some time and we were too swept up in it to give a shit about anything else.

Just as I started to feel my release approaching, James had to be an asshole and shove me off so violently that I fell to the floor. "What the fuck Law-"

"My turn," he growled, pinning me down and entering me as hard as I had done to him.

"FUCK!" I shouted, arching my back up in pain. That was probably one of the most painful things I had ever felt in my life and this is coming from a guy who had to listen to Paul Bearer for the majority of my life.

"God damn you're tight Marky," James panted, pausing for just a second to regain control over himself before he began trying to fuck me through the floor.

"You're…oh fuck you're a fucking asshole." Even as I said that though, I was wrapping my legs around his waist and nipping at his lower lip.

"You love it though," he replied before kissing me roughly and wrapping his hand around my cock so he could start stroking me. "Now scream for me Marky."

I groaned but I didn't scream. I had my dignity you know. "James," I growled, sinking my teeth deep into his neck as I came, actually getting a whole bunch of blood into my mouth at the same time he was coming. It was a weird feeling to have blood in my mouth and cum in my ass…like our fates were sealed right at that moment or some shit like that.

"Holy shit," James said, pulling back and rubbing his neck. "You're a vampire now Marky?"

"I guess so." I carefully got up to my feet, wincing in pain before grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him along.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Upstairs. It's time for round two you son of a bitch."


	16. Death of a Father

Death of a Father (James)

February 3rd, 1978 was the day that I killed my father. I didn't actually set out and plan to kill him on that particular day. As much as I wanted him dead, the fact that I wasn't seeing all that much of him was always putting that desire go to the backburner. When I was home he never seemed to be around and when he probably was home, Annabelle and I were somewhere else, doing our best to avoid Caroline's wrath, which was getting worse each and every single day. Most of our time was spent with Mark and Glenn, but on the nights that we couldn't stay with them, we ended up sleeping in a nearby park, hiding out in the bushes and stuff so the cops driving by wouldn't see us and take us home. I absolutely hated being reduced to that shit, but it was about the only thing we could do. As badly as I wanted Caroline dead I just…I couldn't do it. It was fucked up as hell, but it was what it was. A psychologist would have had a field day trying to dissect all my feelings towards the bitch, let me tell you that.

The day itself started on a pretty crappy note. I woke up at about eleven and immediately started blasting my Sex Pistols album. I had the whole Sid Vicious look going for me at the time and I played their stuff over and over again to the point where everyone around me was sick of it. "James please, do we have to listen to this?" Annabelle whined as I sat at my windowsill smoking a cigarette. "We've listened to this a thousand times already."

"So?" I said with a shrug. "I like it."

"It's not even good music. It's just noise."

"You're just noise."

She looked at me like I was absolutely insane. "That didn't even make any sense," she informed me.

"So? I'm a serial killer. I shouldn't have to make sense." I put out my cigarette and tossed the very end of it out the window before coming all the way back inside. "I should be in a punk band. Wanna start one with me?"

She immediately shook her head. I should have known better than to even ask that question. She suffered from not only a horrible stage fright, but she had developed her people phobia by this time as well. School was a terrible ordeal for her; it was so bad that all of her classes to be with either me or Mark just so she could have an eye kept on her (both of them hated having him look after her, but they put up with it strictly to keep my mind at ease).

"Fine," I said with a sigh. "I'll just ask-"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT NOISE?"

I immediately tried to take Annabelle and escape from the window but it was too late. Caroline kicked the door open violently and I immediately used myself to shield Annabelle, who was trembling in fright already. "What the FUCK are you making me listen to?" the bitch snarled, grabbing my record player and hurled it across the room, almost making it hit me right in the face in the process. "I told you not to play that fucking bullshit in my house! What part of that is so fucking hard to understand?"

I really should have just stayed quiet. It was always better just to stay quiet when she was in one of these moods. But being the idiot that I was, I had to open my big mouth and be a smart ass. "It's Dad's house, not yours bitch. He pays for everything while you just sit on your ass and bitch and moan about everything."

"Oh James, no…" Annabelle moaned.

Caroline's eyes narrowed and she got right in my face, making me want to flinch back. I stood my ground though and looked into her eyes, hating the pure, undiluted hate I saw piercing holes into me. I never could understand what it was about me that made her hate me so much. I tried to come up with theories, but in the end, I always just tried not to think about it too much. Caroline's mind was one thing that was too scary for even me to glimpse into.

"You want to say that again James?" she asked, shoving Annabelle out of the way so she could push me up against the wall. I was as tall as she was at this point but she had the ability to make me feel like a tiny little ant. Bitch could mind fuck with people like nobody's business. "Huh? Say it again!"

I started to open my mouth but was rocked by a slap right across the face. "Worthless piece of shit," she snarled, slapping the other side of my face for good measure. "You think you're cute, don't you?"

"Mom please, don't-"

"Shut the fuck up you stupid cunt!" Caroline snarled at Annabelle, which pissed me the hell off. It was one thing for her to come after me but it was another thing for her to go after Annabelle.

"Leave her the fuck alone," I ordered, my hand inching down towards my pocket so I could grab my knife. "You fucking bitch leave-" When the glimpse of metal caught my eye, I jumped out of the way so fast that Annabelle was startled by the movement. Caroline just laughed at me, holding up the wire hanger and taunting me with it. "What's the matter James?" she asked, laughing even more as I crawled back into the corner and tried not to look freaked out. I couldn't handle seeing Caroline with a wire hanger. I knew from experience just how dangerous she was with that thing and I did not want any kind of repeat performance that day.

"Bitch! Where the fuck is my breakfast?" In a very ironic twist, I was actually saved from more of Caroline's crap by a very cranky Joseph.

"I'm not your fucking slave you fat fuck!" Caroline yelled, giving me one last hateful look before storming out of the room so she could deal with Joseph's crap. I let out a shaky breath after she left, resting my head against Annabelle's chest as she got down on the floor and hugged me. I lost track of how long we stayed huddled in the corner of the room. We got too hypnotized by the sound of Joseph and Caroline screaming at each other. Finally, after what felt like forever, we heard someone go out the front door and then we heard someone else storm out the back door. "Thank God they didn't come up here," Annabelle muttered under her breath.

"They still could," I pointed out darkly.

She shuddered at my words. "I need to take a shower. You think it's safe to do that?"

"I'd make it a fast one," I said. "Just in case."

She nodded in agreement before grabbing some clean clothes and hurrying out to the bathroom. I got up and laid down on our bed, actually drifting off until the sound of Annabelle screaming just about gave me a heart attack. I tried to call out her name but my voice got stuck in the back of my throat as I jumped off the bed and ran out of the room. When I skidded to a halt in front of the bathroom, I found that Joseph had ambushed Annabelle when she was coming out of the shower and he had his fat, grubby hands all over her.

What happened next remains a blur to me to this day. I remember screaming in rage and lunging at Joseph, but then things went black and the next thing I knew, Annabelle and Jacob were pulling me out of the bathroom as they freaked out. "Oh God," Jacob moaned. He was actually crying even though he had absolutely no reason to. He was a big baby like that. "Oh God oh God oh God…"

"Shut up," I snarled as I shoved him away from me. I looked at Annabelle, who had gotten her towel back around her and had a bruise already forming right by her mouth. "That son of a bitch. I'll fucking kill him, I'll-"

"James he's dead," Annabelle assured me, tightening her grip so I wouldn't go back in there. "He's dead. You killed him baby. You killed him."

I calmed down at her words, but I didn't take my eyes off Joseph's body. According to Annabelle (who told me and Mark both exactly what happened later on), I had smashed Joseph's face into the bathroom mirror and then pummeled it with my bare hands before taking out my knife and stabbing him at least three dozen times. There was blood all over me, my knife and the bathroom, and on top of that, Joseph's body was so badly mutilated that his insides were literally laying on the top of his body.

"What are you going to do now?" Jacob asked. "Mom is going to kill you if she sees this mess!"

"We better hope that she doesn't see it then," I muttered. Keeping Annabelle tightly against me, I went downstairs and called Mark, who didn't sound particularly happy about being woken up. "What do you want Lawson?" he asked grumpily.

"I need you to come over. I killed my dad."

That woke him the hell up. "You did what?"

"I killed my dad. He attacked Annabelle…I just need you to come over, okay?"

"Fine. Just give me ten minutes, alright?"

"Okay." I hung up the phone and took Annabelle back upstairs so she could get some clothes on. Neither of us said a word to each other the whole ten minutes that it took Mark to arrive. What could we really say to each other? Me slaughtering Joseph had pretty much said everything that needed to be said.

When Mark got to the house, we dismembered the body and stuffed it in a couple of old duffel bags. Then, while Annabelle and Jacob were cleaning up the bloody bathroom, we grabbed some of Joseph's stuff and took it with us out into the desert, burning it all and burying the ashes. What we were trying to do was make it look like Joseph just up and left us, which worked because he had been threatening to do so for such a long time that it was ridiculous. Nobody ever stopped to think that his disappearance wasn't what it looked like-except for Bearer and Caroline of course. Both of them figured out pretty quickly what I had done. But both of them hated Joseph so they kept their mouths shut about it.

Later that night, I laid in bed with Annabelle, gently stroking her hair and watching her as she slept. Mark was with us too and he was watching me with an unreadable expression on his face. I knew he felt insecure because of how strong my love for Annabelle was, but I couldn't really do anything about it. She was my everything. My light, my soul, my whole reason of still being alive-Mark played a role in that too but there were things that he could never understand or help me get through. Without Annabelle, there wouldn't have been a me for Mark to love. I had killed that day to protect her and I wouldn't change a thing about it for anything in the entire world.


	17. Life After Joseph

Life After Joseph

James

Killing my father did solve a few of the problems Annabelle and I were having in our home life, but in other ways, it made things even worse. With Joseph down, the only thing to distract Caroline from us was Jacob, but she didn't like torturing him nearly as much as she liked torturing me. Maybe it was because he had accepted the fact that she was always going to hate him and beat him up so he just let her until she tired herself out. She got bored easily with him so he was to hide in his room for the most part, only coming out to raid the fridge and go to the bathroom. Me and Annabelle on the other hand…I don't think she ever got tired of hurting us. We were the perfect targets for her. Neither one of us could stand to see the other one get hurt and I was so fucking desperate for her love that she could always use that against me any time that she wanted to and I would fucking fall into her trap, just like I always did.

Not long after Joseph died, Likansuk realized they needed a new captain to steer their ship and at first, they started trying to get Jacob to do it. He was older than I was and it was just assumed that he would carry on the family legacy. However, it became quite apparent that Jacob didn't have the stomach for any kind of leadership position and people started trying to get us to sale the business. Caroline absolutely flipped at the idea because even though she had inherited a nice fortune from her parents, she had grown accustomed to living with Joseph's money on top of her own so she wasn't about to give it up any time soon. And that was where I came in. I wanted to impress her and make her happy so I went straight to Likansuk and took over. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing but I didn't care. I went in, scared them and made them all think that I was way older than I was (I was barely thirteen years old but I was able to pass for sixteen or seventeen) and had a job way before most kids even thought about such things. But did Caroline appreciate it? No, of course not. She just got pissed and had to cut me down, just like she always did.

"What the fuck do you know about running that fucking business?" she sneered angrily. I told her the news on a Saturday during lunch and she had about three glasses of scotch in her already at that point.

"If Joseph could do it, I can do it," I sad defensively. "I'm smarter than he is."

Caroline snorted loudly. "Don't flatter yourself. You're even more of a retard than he was." She leaned back in her chair and stared at me hatefully. "I swear to God, if you run that piece of shit business into the ground and lose all the money, you better pray I don't get my fucking hands on you or your cunt sister because I'll kill you both."

"Not if I kill you first," I muttered without thinking."

That set her right off. "WHAT the fuck did you just say? Huh?" She smacked me across the face. "Say it again!" She smacked me again when I didn't say anything. "Come on bitch, say it again!"

"I said not if I kill you first," I repeated, which made her grin evilly.

"Oh so you're going to kill me now?" She chuckled and stretched her arms out. "Well do it then."

"What?" I should have known right then to just get away. She was fucking with me to prove that I didn't have the guts to do it.

"Go on, kill me already," she dared. "You know you want to." She waited for me to make a move, grinning triumphantly when I didn't move. "That's what I thought."

"Fuck you," I growled. I started to storm off but I didn't get far. She grabbed an empty bottle of scotch and smacked me in the head with it, splitting my skull open without even breaking the bottle. I stumbled forward, hitting the wall and going into even more of a daze than before. I started to crumple to the ground, but Caroline grabbed me by the hair and kept me up, reaching into my pocket so she could grab my knife and put it right in my face.

"Fuck me?" she hissed, enjoying the power she had over me. "No James, fuck you." She grinned and licked her lips. "Let's play a little game…"

…

Mark

I'm not one for regrets but I always did regret listening to James and not killing Caroline from the very start. The attachment he had to her was completely unhealthy, especially given the way she treated him. She hated him so much. I don't think there was ever a parent who ever hated their kid as much as she did him. It was painful as hell to watch her tear him down and what was even worse was the fact that he believed he deserved it. She got in his head at such a young age that he really did believe the shit that came out of her mouth. He would say he didn't but he did. As much as he denied it, he believed her lies and couldn't be convinced otherwise.

There's always one night that sticks out in my mind as being really horrible. It was just after dinner that Annabelle and James came over and I knew right when they came in that something was horribly wrong. Annabelle had been in bed for several days from what we thought was a stomach virus at the time (but it was actually morning sickness-which is a whole other story that can be gotten into later) and her actually dragging James around meant something was wrong. "What happened?" I asked. "Wha-" My voice died when I could see the blood staining through his shirt. "What the fuck happened?"

"Mom." That was all Annabelle could say, but it was explanation enough. I quickly took him because she was too weak to continue holding him and I took him upstairs so I could clean him up. When I got his shirt off I saw that Caroline had gotten knife happy with his body, which made my blood boil. "I'll fucking kill her," I growled. "I fucking-"

"Mark don't," James pleaded weakly. "Just don't."

"Are you fucking serious? She needs to fucking _die_! You can't-" I groaned as he pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face so I couldn't see it. There was no point in even trying to go on. He wasn't going to listen to anybody anyway. "James-"

"What the fuck did I do to her?" he asked miserably. His voice was cracking and the fact that he was refusing to look up meant he was having a breakdown. "What the fuck did I do to her?"

I couldn't answer him. I just tended to his wounds as best as I could while ignoring the question. The answer was simple and completely obvious but I didn't have the heart to say it. How do you tell your best friend that the mistake he made was being born? I just couldn't do it. It hurt to say because I loved him and besides, deep down, I already knew that he knew it.

She had made sure he knew it all along.


	18. Consequences

Consequences (Annabelle)

June 9th, 1978

I feel like there's something horribly wrong with me. I've been getting sick every morning for the past two weeks and it's driving James up the wall. He's getting crazy worried about me and even when I try to assure him that I'm okay, he doesn't listen to me. He just keeps fussing over me and he even wants to take me to the doctor. I don't want him to do that though. I hate doctors. They make me feel all nervous and stuff. Besides, we would more than likely need Mom to go with us since we're not grown ups and there's no way she'll take us. She doesn't care if we're sick. She would be perfectly fine with me and James being sick (as long as she didn't catch it anyway) and dying.

I do wish James would stop fawning over me in front of Mark so much though. James is insisting I have the flu or something so he's making me stay in bed and he's been right by my side, which is pissing Mark off. I know this because he snuck in earlier and he and James got into a fight when they thought I was sleeping.

"What the hell are you doing Lawson?" Mark hissed. "You've been in this house with her for days and she's not dying or anything! You can fucking leave her alone for once."

I opened my eyes just enough to see James shake his head. "She's sick Mark. I have to take care of her."

"All she's doing is throwing up a little bit. She's fine otherwise."

James looked absolutely scandalized by that statement. "Someone who is fine does not throw up every day for two weeks!"

"Okay so she's got a bug-"

"Mark! I'm really worried about her!"

Mark rolled his eyes. "She'll be fine, alright Lawson? You're getting worked up over nothing." He knew immediately after he said that that he had said the wrong thing. James just huffed loudly and I closed my eyes all the way again as he got on the bed and hugged me. I know that angered Mark and now I am going to have to deal with him being even more of an asshole than he normally was to me. I really wish that James didn't like him so much. It would make my life so much easier but I know it'll never happen. James loves Mark and I'm willing to get treated like shit in order for him to have the both of us. He does so much for me that it's the least I can do.

…

June 13th, 1978

My throwing up isn't getting any better and now I'm constantly tired and am suffering from some major headaches. James literally almost dragged me into the hospital to get me checked out but I kicked and screamed and begged until he agreed to take me home. He'll take me back though if I don't get better and he won't take no for an answer. That scares the hell out of me but what's even more scary was what I realized when we went into the drug store to buy something that would help my stomach. Right there in the middle of the store, I realized that I had not had my period in like…maybe five or six weeks? I'm not for sure. I'm terrified though because of what if being pregnant is what's wrong with me? I don't think I can handle that. A baby…no. I have to be sick with the flu. That's what I want to be wrong with me. I can't have a baby. I just cant'.

…

June 15th, 1978

I'm trying to hide my throwing up better than I was but I don't think James is buying it. Luckily though, Mark has upped his assholeness up to new levels and is implying that he could go off with any other boy or girl that he wanted, which highly upsets James and leads to loud fighting and even louder and more obnoxious makeup sex. Normally I despise that but as long as it keeps James off of me for a little bit I'm okay. I'm trying to deal with the increasingly more likely possibility that I am pregnant and it's scaring the fuck out of me. I had Glen take me to the library when Mark and James were doing their thing and I did my research since there's really nobody I can talk to about all of this. I'm too scared to tell James, I definitely can't talk to Mom or Mark, Glen's just beginning to find out about all of this kind of shit and I can't trust any of my teachers or counselors not to open their big mouths. I'm really on my own here and I just want to curl up in a ball and cry because everyone is going to be really mean when they find out. This baby belongs to James and even though Mark and Glen are the only ones who know what James' and mine relationship is like, everyone else has already made their own assumptions. But they twist it into something evil and disgusting and I hate it because they use it to try to make my life a living hell. They won't do it to James because they're scared of him but I'm another story. They want to hurt me and they do it unless James is around. Then they just glare at me and make me withdraw even more into myself.

What I need is a pregnancy test. I'm scared to even take one though. I don't know what I'm going to do if I am pregnant; I don't even know how I'm going to tell James…fuck, someone kill me now. Just please put me out of my misery.

…

July 2nd, 1978

I wasn't going to write this because I wanted to keep it all to myself until the day I died but I have to get it out somehow. I can't talk to anyone about it so this is my only outlet. Two days after my last entry, I went out and got a pregnancy test. Three days after that, I got James out of the house while I thought Mom was gone so I could take it. The test came out positive. I was pregnant. It was still shocking even though I had suspected it, mainly because the reality of the situation started to sink in. I had to tell James. I was terrified out of my mind but I recognized the fact that he had to know. This was his baby. I had to tell him.

I never got the chance though. As soon as I went to leave the bathroom I found Mom on the other side of the door. I screamed a little bit and dropped the pregnancy test because she had startled me so badly. I hate it when she pops up when she's not supposed to. She was supposed to be gone but there she was, glaring at me like I was a demon or something.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" she asked, snatching up the pregnancy test before I could get it back. She stared at the results, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head and her jaw literally dropping. "What the FUCK IS THIS?"

I whimpered and backed up. "N-Nothing," I stammered out nervously.

She stared at the results some more before dropping the stick and advancing on me like a shark that smelled blood. "It's your brother's isn't it? You two created this little mongoloid incest freak-"

"Mom please-" My head rocked violently to the side as she slapped me across the face as hard as she could. I burst into tears and back up into the corner, beyond terrified out of my mind.

"Are you going to do the right thing?" she asked. "Are you going to get rid of it?"

I shook my head and kept crying. I would never get rid of my baby. Never ever-but right then I should have lied and said that I was because what happened next will haunt me until the day I died. Caroline kicked me in the stomach as hard as she could, making me double over in pain. I tried to scream but it also took the air out of my body, and I was practically defenseless as she grabbed my arms and started kneeing my stomach over and over again, not stopping even after I felt the blood signifying my miscarriage seep out between my legs.

"I WILL NOT HAVE ANOTEHR FUCKING FREAK IN MY HOUSE!" she screamed at me, grabbing my hair and slamming me face first on to the floor. My nose broke on impact but I barely felt it at the time. I was too busy curling up into the fetal position and sobbing as she continued to kick the shit out of me.

"You and that fucking brother of yours-I know what you do! You think you can fool me! You're nothing but a couple of ungrateful freaks-" What else she said went one ear and out the other because at that point she kicked me in the head and gave me a concussion. I don't remember how long she beat me. I just know that eventually she got tired and she took the pregnancy test before she left. I was left laying there, clutching my stomach and sobbing so loudly that it hurt to gasp for breath. Eventually I managed to pull myself up to my feet and clean up the blood between my legs before James got home and freaked out big time when he saw me. He rushed me to the hospital and got me checked out, but I made sure he didn't find out about the miscarriage. He's never going to find out about it if I can help it. Our baby…our sweet innocent baby died because of Caroline and I can't let him find out. I'm the only one who needs to be haunted by it. She's making him suffer enough as it is.


	19. Ringside Mayhem

Ringside Mayhem (Mark)

I never really understood Bearer's decision to get into being a manger in professional wrestling. It definitely wasn't for the money (not at first anyway). His mortuary business was pretty good and he could have lived the rest of his life off of that and he would have been extremely comfortable. And I know for a fact that he really didn't care much for the wrestling business itself. He would get mad whenever he caught me watching it and he would yell at me whenever he caught me with all the magazines and shit. So unless he was just being a dick to me about it because I dared to find enjoyment in anything (and knowing him, that's actually a very likely scenario), he absolutely despised the business as far as I knew. But that didn't stop him from beginning to take bookings to be a manager for some promotions down in the southeast and once I found out about it, I decided to use that to my advantage. My wrestling aspirations were really starting to kick in and I figured that I could use Bearer to get my foot in the door. At least he would be finally good for something besides from having a house I could live in.

During one weekend in August, Bearer had some shows to go to down in Tennessee. And as he usually did, he got his panties all in a bunch and threatened me with the fiery gates of hell if I dared to fuck with his house or soil it by fucking James in it. And me being me, I invited James over and we fucked about a half a dozen times before grabbing Glenn and Annabelle and heading after Bearer to Tennessee. Nobody else was really all that eager to go, especially considering that Bearer probably would see us and blow his shit; they all enjoyed it when he left because he always fancied himself a bossy little tyrant but once I talked James into going, he insisted on bringing Annabelle and Glenn knew he had to come so I wouldn't attempt to distract James and leave her behind on our way back.

So there we were, on a road trip with one of Bearer's cars that I had borrowed without permission. Sounds fun right? Well let me tell you something: it's not fun. Not with James in the car. If anyone thinks he's bad on road trips now, he was even worse back then. He could never sit still and was even more obnoxious than he usually was. And if you added in the fact that we were gong somewhere that he didn't want to go, it made for a real disaster in the making.

"Marky! Marky look! There's a wax museum over there!" James yelled, his head sticking out the window like he was a giant dog or something. "Let's go over there, I want to see it!"

I shook my head and grabbed him by the shirt so I could pull him back into the car. "You don't even like museums."

"But this isn't a regular museum Marky!" James pointed out. "This is a WAX museum! It could be like that Vincent Price movie-"

"If it was like that then why the hell would we risk going in?" I asked with a shake of my head.

He smirked arrogantly. "Well we could get Crispy Critter back there killed and-"

"Fuck you!" Glenn snapped angrily. He tried to reach up and grab James but Annabelle stopped him so he settled for kicking the back of James's seat. "Why don't you go get yourself killed and made into a wax statue, you fucking mother fucker!"

Annabelle sighed and shook her head. "Glenn-"

"I would never fuck my mother," James said, a really nasty look. "But if I hadn't burned your mommy up I might have considered getting in her pants-"

Now that shit set Glenn right off. He nearly busted Annabelle in the face in his attempts to climb up to the front seat and kill James. I actually had to pull the car over and get out so I could yank them both out by the hair and force them apart. "Stop it!" I yelled angrily. "Both of you fucking stop it! That is enough! James, you apologize to Glenn right now!"

"No!" James said defiantly. "I don't wanna!"

"Let go of me!" Glenn snarled. The comment about our mother had really set him off and he was not about to be denied.

"Glenn! James! Please don't!" Annabelle begged. She was starting to get out of the car but I gave her a nasty look and she sat back down. The last thing I needed was for her to get out and get hurt somehow and then have Lawson bitching at me because I didn't prevent it.

Glenn let out another snarl and managed to get out of my grip so he could tackle James. The two of them rolled all over the ground, beating the living shit out of each other. I tried to pull them apart again but when I got elbowed in the face, I lost my cool completely. In a fit of rage, I got the tire iron out of the back of the trunk and used it to smack Glenn and James upside the head so they would be unconscious and quiet.

"Mark!" Annabelle exclaimed as I dragged Glenn and James back into the car. "Are you insane? You could have killed them!"

"But I didn't," I pointed out. "And that's the important thing." Once I got them back into the car, I started driving again and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

**Cooper note: Both Dad and Crispy said they kicked Mark's ass once they regained consciousness. When asked about it, Mark pretended to act like he had no idea what I was talking about. Fucking Calaway got owned and I love it.**

When we got to Tennessee, we had to drive all around for forever to find the small little arena Bearer was working at. Glenn and James weren't speaking to each other but despite that the mood was still so tense that it drove me absolutely bonkers. I didn't say a damn thing about it though because I wasn't going to instigate another fucking brawl. Instead I just focused on trying to get us not lost any more while denying that we were lost in the first place.

"Why can't we just stop and ask for directions?" Annabelle asked timidly. She was sick of being in the car but she sure as shit wasn't going to tell me that.

I shook my head stubbornly. "Because I know where we're going. We'll be there soon enough."

"Marky you said that an hour ago!" James whined. He was absolutely livid at me for hitting him and he was not about to make my life easy at all. "This is STUPID! We didn't even want to fucking come on this trip-"

"Lawson-"

"We could be having fun but no! You and you're stupid wrestling obsession-"

"I'm not obsessed and it's not stupid!"

"IT IS TOO!" Now James being the "brilliant" teenager he was, proceeded to hit the window and break the glass with his fist. Annabelle started freaking out because there was blood and I had to stop at a drug store so we could get stuff to patch him up. And then, to really top things off, Glenn went behind my back and asked for directions. That fucker…us getting there ten minutes afterwards thanks to those directions wasn't the point. I would have gotten us there all by myself just as fast…eventually.

Once we were at the arena, James and I used our fake ID's to buy a whole bunch of cheap beer before taking our seats. The place was full of half drunk people already and once the show actually started, it just got worse. I didn't even get a chance to see all the matches or do anything else I wanted to do. During the third match Annabelle went to go get popcorn with James and somebody made the mistake of grabbing her ass. The groping scared the fuck out of her and set James right the hell off.

"YOU MOTHER FUCKER!" James literally screamed at the top of his lungs and tackled this guy right out of his chair. The guy's friends jumped up and joined the party which meant I had to jump into the fray while Glenn went around the madness to pick up Annabelle and carry her off somewhere safe.

So there James and I were, kicking ass and kind of getting our asses kicked ourselves because we were outnumbered. It helped when our brawl caught on with half the arena and it turned into an every man for himself scenario. James stayed on that groper though, beating the ever living fuck out of him and forcing me to step in before he literally beat him to death right then and there.

"Let me go!" James snarled as he tried to get away from me. "I'll fucking kill him! He's going to fucking die!"

"No he's not," I told him. "Don't you hear the sirens? The pigs are about to be swarming this place. We have to get the fuck out of here."

James just snarled again and tried to get away from me and I had to tighten my grip so I could meet up with an annoyed Glenn and a scared Annabelle. "I think it's time to get out of here," I said unhappily.

"Fuck yeah it is," Glenn snapped. He had a good hold on Annabelle because she was having quite the meltdown on us. She hated things like this; whatever fucking phobias and shit she had went into hyper drive in these kinds of situations. I had to roll my eyes at her before motioning for Glenn to let her go. Once he did, she jumped straight into James's arms, who calmed down enough to comfort her. I rolled my eyes again and started leading them all out of there. Glenn followed directly behind me, muttering curses loud enough so I could hear them. Annabelle sniffled and cried the entire way back to the car and while James was doing his best to calm her down, he also had something very "important" on his mind.

"Can we go back to that wax museum now Marky?"

I just about killed him. I really really did.


	20. Sparky

Sparky (Mark)

By the time high school started, Annabelle's whole people phobia was starting to get out of control. I've never really understood what the hell it was all about. Sure people suck but it wasn't like they were as scary as she made them out to be. But for whatever reason, she started having panic attacks and shit when she was in classes that had absolutely nobody that she knew and the school actually had to switch all her classes around so she was with either James or me at all times. I still don't know how I got roped into those babysitting duties; I know it wasn't because I volunteered to do it or anything like that. James said he never volunteered my services but I don't think he's ever been entirely truthful with that answer. For whatever reason, even though we clearly hated each other, he still trusted me to help take care of her. Maybe it was because I knew he would kill me if I ever let anything happen to her. Incentive like that was a very powerful motivator because Lawson fucking got scary about her. I'm not a guy who's ever scared easily but even I knew that there were just some lines that could not be crossed with James and she was one of them.

Now sometimes we tried to do the right thing and help her get through the class, showing her that she could sit in a room full of people without them doing whatever it was that she thought they were going to do to her. But us being us and hating school as much as we did, we usually just ended up taking her and sneaking out so we could roam around the city and do our own thing. Neither James or I had any interest in anything that was being taught to us. If we had wanted to, we could have done extremely well with the whole education thing. It wasn't like we were completely stupid or anything like that. But school as a whole bored the both of us to tears so any chance we got to skip was one we gladly took.

Normally we usually ended up at the park or my basement, just sitting around and not doing much of anything. One day though, it was like…fuck it must have been in October because James was on his own Halloween candy kick…anyway it rained and James being James, decided that he needed to take a nice long walk and splash in every fucking puddle he saw. It was like he was a little fucking boy again and it was driving me crazy because I could not make him stop.

"Bouncy bouncy bouncy SPLASH! Bouncy bouncy bouncy SPLASH! Bouncy bouncy bouncy SPLASH! Bouncy bouncy-"

"Lawson stop it," I said, trying to keep my distance because my pants were already wet enough as it was. It wasn't working out too well though because the mother fucker knew how to make big fucking splashes.

"SPLASH! Bouncy bouncy SPLASH!"

"Damn it James!" Now my shirt had just gotten dirty and it was white so it was horribly obvious. "Would you knock it off? Please, for my sanity's sake?"

"No no no SPLASH!"

**Cooper note: So THAT is where Connor gets that from. I've always wondered about that…**

"James!" Annabelle said softly, of course getting his attention better than I did because he actually listened to her. "You got me all wet!"

James blinked and gave her what was a pretty dumb look. "Don't I always?"

Her face turned the brightest shade of red I have ever seen in my life and I just groaned and rolled my eyes. The double meaning of that statement made my stomach totally rebel on me. "You're disgusting," I informed James. "Don't ever say that shit around me again."

"Don't censor me bitch," James replied, wrapping his arms around Annabelle and letting her bury her face into his chest. "I'll say what I want to say and you can't stop me."

"Wanna bet?" I challenged.

"Maybe later." He placed his chin on the top of Annabelle's head and looked up at the sky. "I want it to rain again. Make it rain again Marky."

"I can't. I'm not a magician."

"Well you should be. I would love you long time if you were."

"So you don't love me long time now?" I asked with a frown.

"I do but I would love you even more if you were a magician." Now how the hell did someone argue with that kind of logic? Someone please tell me because I'm still not good at it.

"Just cut your shit and I'll think about it," was what I came back with. That got him to shut up for a little while but the silence ended when we happened to walk past a pet store. "Oooh, puppies!" He stuck his face up against the glass and laughed as the puppies that were in the cage by the window started trying to get at him. "I want one."

"Mom hates dogs though," Annabelle pointed out. "Remember? She said if you ever brought one home she would skin it alive."

James's face fell as he remembered that and I eyed the two of them and then the dogs before shaking my head. "Fuck her," I stated. "You really want a dog Lawson?"

James nodded silently.

"So let's get one. I've got Bearer's card-" I didn't even get to get the rest of that sentence out. James pretty much jumped right on top of me and started planting kisses all over my face before dragging me and Annabelle inside and picking out a pit bull puppy for himself. Now I figured he was going to give the animal a cool or dangerous name. It would have been really fitting but no, he named the animal Sparky of all things. And that reminds me, what is it with you Lawsons and naming their pets stuff that start with the letter s? Sparky, Spot, Snoopy, Spike…

**Cooper note**: I've got no answer to that. It's all coincidence.

Anyway, because Caroline was an animal hater in general, we had to plan Sparky's life very carefully. He was to stay with James as much as possible and he was never allowed to be alone in the same house as Caroline. He actually ended up staying in my room a whole bunch the first few years of his life until James finally did kill Caroline and Sparky could safely live at home without getting skinned. When we say she hated dogs, we mean she HATED dogs. Her reaction to actually seeing Sparky proved that point real fast.

"What the FUCK is that and WHY is it here?" Caroline snarled, making a scene right in the front yard so the entire neighborhood could hear.

"It's a doggy," James said as he clutched Sparky protectively. "His name is Sparky-"

"_SPARKY_?" I had to wince because the way she said that really made my ears ring. "That fucking thing looks like a rat!"

"It does not-" James had to jump back to avoid the slap that Caroline tried to give him. "Mom!"

"You get rid of that thing and you get rid of it now! You hear me?"

"No!"

Annabelle's eyes widened and I quickly pulled James behind me because Caroline was out for blood now. You did not tell her no when she told you something. Not in her book anyway. She started to reach for James but I pushed her back, really sick of her bullshit. She responded by punching me hard enough to actually dislocate my jaw and then kneed me in the groin as hard as she possibly could. Now because I was on the ground writhing around in pain, I didn't see how what happened next went down. All I know is that when I looked up, Caroline's hand was bleeding like crazy because Sparky took a chunk right out of it when she tried to go after James. James looked shocked as hell, Annabelle was clearly terrified and Caroline was beyond pissed. And me being me, I did the sensible thing: I grabbed the others and ran for it. There's no messing with Lawsons when they're pissed, and that was especially true when it came to Caroline. Fucking bitch had all kinds of problems and really should have died sooner. We would have all been better off if she had.


	21. My So Called Life

My So Called Life (James)

By the time my sophomore year of high school rolled around, Mark was into the whole experimenting with drugs thing. He started trying all different kinds of shit and he always tried to get me to do it too. But beyond pot I never really got into that whole scene. I could never really explain why I never did any of the shit he did. It just really didn't appeal to me. But the point is, he did it and he did it a lot. And at first, I honestly didn't mind. You know, I wasn't about to stand there and tell him what he could and couldn't do. But then he started getting stupid as he usually does when he's under the influence of something and then one night, when he came over when Caroline was gone, some of his LSD fell out of his pocket without any of us realizing it. And guess who found it? Caroline. And guess what? She thought they were mine. Or at least she decided to just assume they were mine so she could have an excuse to come after me. She liked doing that. Everything was my fault. That shit was always beaten into my brain. If something went wrong, even if I had nothing to do with it, it was blamed on me. It was just the way things worked between us.

When she chose to confront me about "my" drugs I was in the kitchen, trying to find something that would make Annabelle's stomach feel better. She had the flu so I was trying to take care of her but that job got insanely hard when Caroline came up behind me and literally punched the back of my neck so hard that I went down to my knees, literally feeling like I was paralyzed.

"Mom!" I groaned, staring up at her and gulping at the look of rage on her face. "What-" My head was rocked to the side with a punch and I hit the ground fully, nearly blacking out I had been hit so hard.

"Get up," Caroline hissed, yanking me back up to my knees by the hair. "And look at this. Fucking explain this shit to me." She held up Mark's drugs and sneered as my eyes widened. "You didn't think I would find this did you?"

"Mom that's not mine-"

"BULLSHIT!" She got so much in my face that I could practically taste the booze on her breath and it made me gag violently. "You think I'm fucking stupid? Huh? You think I'm a fucking idiot?"

"Mom really, they're not mine," I said, trying to twist myself out of her grip so I could put some distance between us. "They're not, I swear."

"Oh." A devilish gleam entered her eyes. "So you're saying they're Annabelle's. Well then…" she let me go and began to walk away. "I guess I need to have this chat with her instead."

"No!" I really just about had a heart attack at the thought of her going after Annabelle for that shit. "I lied I lied I lied! They're mine!" I was literally throwing myself on the sword here and I was making plans to fucking kill Mark when I saw him again. Him and his stupid habits had gotten me into this mess and I was going to fucking get killed if she had her way.

"Oh. So you're admitting you're a liar then?" Caroline's voice had a dangerous edge to it that made me die a little on the inside.

"Yes," I said quietly, knowing that it was going to end in badness for me but I couldn't let her go after Annabelle. I loved her too much to allow that to happen.

Caroline's eyes narrowed and she started advancing towards me, making me back up until I was trapped up against the corner of the room with nowhere to go. "You know I don't like liars in my house," she said, cracking her knuckles threateningly. I really thought she was going to beat my face in but then she glanced down at the drugs and I saw the light bulb go off in her head.

"You want to do this shit in my house?" she asked, kneeling down in front of me and taking the LSD out of the baggie it was in.

"No…"

She slapped me across the face and then shoved the drugs into my mouth. "Do it!" she screamed, practically shoving her fingers down my throat as she force fed me the drugs. "Fucking do it!"

I tried to shove her off but she was relentless and the shit was in my system before I knew it. I had never been on an acid trip before and after my experience, I never ever wanted to go on another one again. She left me there on the kitchen floor and before long I was seeing thousands upon thousands of little miniature hers marching across the floor, looking like the little toy soldiers that I used to play with. But they all started pointing their guns at me and I literally hid under the table to take cover from their gunfire and I stayed under there for ten hours, just having this horrible horrible trip and not realizing just how close I came to overdosing because Caroline gave me so much.

When I finally regained my bearings I felt like shit and the house was quiet. Way too quiet. I stumbled through the house, finding Mom passed out on the couch and Jacob sitting on the chair, just staring out the window with watery eyes. I didn't even acknowledge his existence. I just went upstairs as quietly as I could, feeling like I wanted to throw up. "Belle?" I called out, definitely planning on kicking Mark's ass when I got a hold of him. But first I had to check on Annabelle and see if she was alright. She had been on her own during my trip and that worried me more than I could put into words. "Belle?"

All I got in response was the sound of her crying and I immediately ran to her room, my eyes nearly popping out of my head when I saw the state she was in. Mom had attacked her in her weakened state and had literally chopped most of her hair off. It was lying there in clumps all over the bed and Annabelle was just crying her eyes out, traumatized out of her mind. She wasn't particularly vain or anything but these scissor attacks always scared the living shit out of her. "Oh fuck," I said, immediately rushing to the bed and sitting down next to her so she could sob in my arms. Some of her scalp was actually bleeding because Caroline had ripped some of the hair out as opposed to cutting it and once I got her settled down, it took me three hours to fix the damage that had been done as much as it could be fixed. It was so bad that I slapped a cap on her head and told her we were going wig shopping so the worst of it could be hidden until it grew out more. I wanted to confront Mom on the way out but she was gone when we got downstairs. So I just bottled up my anger and took Annabelle out, getting her a nice wig that looked pretty cute on her and then headed to Mark's house so I could kick his ass for this mess.

My only problem? He wasn't even there.

"Well where is he?" I asked as I stomped my foot impatiently. I was trying to extract information from Glenn but it wasn't going so well because Crispy Critter was being difficult.

"I don't know, alright?" Glenn said, getting really pissed because I wouldn't take his word for shit. "If I knew don't you think I would tell you so you would leave me alone?"

I snorted and folded my arms over my chest. "I don't know…I mean, I'm pretty sure you've always secretly liked me."

The face Glenn made at that was absolutely hysterical. "No…just no. I've NEVER liked you-"

"Sure you do. You just want me to give you a big old hug but you're too shy to ask."

"Oh my…" Annabelle put her hand over her mouth and tried to hide her giggle, but she failed when I started hugging Glenn and tried to give him a big old kiss.

"Get OFF me!" he yelled, shoving me away and trying to make his escape. I didn't let him get far though. I pounced on him and planted a big one right on his lips before smacking his ass and grabbing Annabelle so we could leave.

"Was that really necessary?" she asked with a shake of her head.

"Yes," I replied. Now that my fun was over I was back on the hunt for Mark. Later on, I found out that he had actually gotten into an altercation with his dealer and ended up killing him and getting wounded himself. So he was actually in the hospital during my entire hunt for him and he had actually called the house while I was out looking for him but I never knew it. What I did know was that when Annabelle and I finally got home, our house had been broken into and there was a guy who was high out of his mind, holding a gun directly into Jacob's face. "Where's Calaway?" he screamed. "Where the fuck is he?" This guy I later learned was the dead drug dealer's brother and he, along with pretty much everyone else in the city, knew Mark and I were attached at the hip so this was the logical place for him to search.

Jacob just cried and blubbered, and from the smells of it he shit and pissed himself as well. "I don't know!" he whined, too large to even try to fight this guy off. His own arms were too heavy for him to lift up half the time. "I don't know I don't know please don't kill me I don't know-"

"Liar!" the guy yelled, not even noticing that Annabelle and I were standing right there, watching the scene in shock. "You fucking tell me where he is and you do it now! Or I swear to God I'll-"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON DOWN THERE?"

The guy got so badly scared by the sound of Caroline's roar that the gun accidentally went off and Jacob's brains were sprayed all over the chair. Annabelle screamed and I just stood there and watched with an open mouth as the raging bull known as Caroline came charging down the stairs. She was completely drunk out of her mind and in a rage, which was never a good thing. She saw the guy with a gun and saw the mess he made with Jacob on the chair and lost her shit. Before the guy could even turn the gun on her she chucked her empty bottle of scotch at his head, knocking him silly when it struck him right between his eyes. He stumbled back and dropped the gun and she was on him in an instant, grabbing him by the back of the neck and raising her fist so she could begin pummeling the fuck out of him. Part of me was really tempted to stay there and watch the show but my brain overrode that urge real quick. She would have turned her attention to me and Annabelle real quick if we had stuck around. We were her favorite targets after all.


	22. One Night Stand

One Night Stand (Mark)

**Glenn note: For reasons that will become obvious real soon, Cooper could not be allowed to write this chapter. So Phil and I flipped a coin and unfortunately, I lost. So yeah…fuck my life doggy style. **

The day that uh…"it" happened started out pretty well. At least I thought it did. Annabelle and Glenn went off to do their own thing so James and I could spend some time together. Honestly, it amazed me how fucking hard it was for the two of us to be alone sometimes. It felt like planning a military operation or something.

**Glenn note: He's full of shit. He convinced James to leave Belle with me so they could do their own thing just as much as she and James were attached to the hip. It wasn't NEARLY as hard as he's making it out to be. He's just pissy that if Annabelle would have given the order, James would have dropped his ass in a heartbeat. **

Anyway, once we were alone, we went around business as normal. We fucked, watched TV, fucked again, went out hunting, fucked in some alley that we shouldn't have, got something to eat, got ice cream because Lawson wouldn't shut up, fucked again-"

**Glenn note: …..**

"-then, in our ever infinite wisdom, we decided to get drunk. We weren't going out to like party and shit. We just wanted to sit around and get drunk and watch TV. Of course, with the drinking and the TV, there was bound to be a fight at some point. It came a bit sooner than I thought it would though, when after All in the Family was over I switched the channel to football.

"Oh come on," James complained loudly. "Why this?" This is stupid."

I shook my head incredulously at him. I will never ever understand why he hates football. He's always hated it. Hell, any fucking sport, he just hates watching. It don't matter what it is. As soon as I put it on, he starts complaining. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" I asked bluntly. "How can you hate football? That's just like…not allowed."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because you're a man. Men like football. It's been that way since the beginning of fucking time."

"Bearer don't like football," he quickly pointed out.

"He don't count," I said dismissively. "Now quit yer belly achin'. We're only watching this until wrestling comes on."

If it was at all possible, he looked even less pleased with that announcement. He had never liked it to begin with really, but once Bearer found out I wanted to be a wrestler, the asshole started down talking it a hell of a lot and going on about the brutal schedule that would take me away from home for most of the days out of the year…and that was when James really began to hate it even more. He knew I really wanted it and he took it as me really wanting to leave him.

"I'd rather just watch football than that," he muttered under his breath.

"Oh Jesus," I groaned. "Lawson come on! It's not that bad! You might actually like it if you would just quit complaining about it for two seconds."

He didn't even give me a verbal response to that. He just gave me an annoyed look before drinking even more than he had been before. I rolled my eyes at him before turning my attention back to the TV. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable silence in the world but we were okay. He was getting completely wasted and I was getting a hell of a buzz and I was thinking about making my choice of television up to him with more sex when Glenn and Annabelle decided to crash the party.

"Belle!" James shouted drunkenly, all over her in an instant. "Hi Belle!" He almost fell down he was so drunk but she helped to catch him and was rewarded with getting sloppy kisses planted all over her face. "I missed you!"

"I missed you too," she said, wrinkling her nose because his breath just had to fucking reek.

"What are you doing here?" I snapped, glaring at Glenn for bringing her back here.

"This is my house!" Glenn said nastily. "I can be here if I want."

"But she-"

"What the fuck was I supposed to do? Make her go home to Caroline?" Glenn shook his head at me before looking at James. "Hey Lawson, Mark says Annabelle isn't welcome here."

"You fucking-" I groaned at the hurt look that flashed across James's face at the same time Annabelle's head dropped submissively. She knew I never wanted her around but she never stood up for herself and said anything against me. It made me look like an even bigger asshole than I already was.

**Glenn note: And what would that have gotten her? He would have bullied her worse the moment she said something. Believe me, I've dealt with James saying shit to me my entire life. Sometimes standing up for yourself don't do anything. It just makes the shit worse.**

"Why?" James asked, that word becoming so slurred that it was hard to actually tell what he was trying to say. It was at that moment that I realized that the alcohol had either hit him a lot harder than I thought or I wasn't paying as much attention as I thought I had been and he had drank even more than I thought he had. "Why Marky?"

"Forget it," I grunted, grabbing another couple beers so I could keep my buzz on. "Just forget it."

He nodded along drunkenly before pulling Annabelle over to where he had been sitting. "Come on Belle," he said eagerly. "Come drink with me."

"James no," she said weakly. "You sound like you've had enough."

"No I don't," he denied. He yanked her down next to him and picked up his bottle of vodka so he could hold it to her lips. "You drink."

She shook her head. "I don't like it."

"You no try," James argued. "You try now."

"No…" Her protests were so damn weak that they were absolutely pathetic. I knew she had no backbone but that was ridiculous…then again, she grew up learning to be scared of drunk people. Joseph and Caroline were even more fucking psychotic when drunk and all the times James had been drunk, he really had just been around me and not her. It wouldn't be hard to think that she was fearful of him becoming violent without any kind provocation.

Glenn rolled his eyes as James coaxed Annabelle into drinking with him. "They're all yours," he informed me before taking his leave.

"Thanks a lot you fuck!" I shouted as he left.

**Glenn note: You're welcome numb nuts.**

With Glenn gone and Annabelle around, I threw back my drinks a hell of a lot faster while keeping my eyes as glued to the television as much as possible. It was hard to concentrate on it though because James was being even more loud and obnoxious than usual and with each passing minute, Annabelle was getting more and more giggly. This was the night we all learned she was a complete lightweight. It was rather shocking given her family's history but she had maybe an eighth of what James had and was drunk.

After awhile I got up and left the room for a bit so I could find some cigarettes and smoke them. By the time I came back, James was passed out and dead to the world and Annabelle was just sitting there, looking very very woozy because the booze was just kicking her ass. "You ain't passed out yet?" I asked as I plopped back down in my seat.

She slowly shook her head, that response just so delayed that I thought she was ignoring me at first. "I don't…I don't feel so good."

"Well if you're going to throw up, go do it in the bathroom," I told her. "You throw up anywhere else, you're cleaning it up."

She didn't even acknowledge what I had just said. She just kept a hand over her stomach while she leaned towards James. "James…James wake up. I don't feel good."

"Oh what, does he have to hold your hand until you feel better?" I asked obnoxiously. Good grief, I didn't get why she just couldn't just pass out already. Was that really too much to ask for?

Again she ignored me and that really fucking bothered me. She was too busy crawling on top of James, trying in vain to shake him awake. "James? James? JAMES!"

"Quit yelling!" I snapped, getting up to my feet so I could grab her by the arm and roughly yank her off of him. In retrospect that wasn't really necessary I guess…it just made my insides burn to see her all over what was mine so I had to get her off.

"OW!" she yelped, glaring at me hatefully.

"Leave him alone," I ordered. "He'll wake up when he damn well feels like it."

"But I gotta-STOP it!" She had tried to get back on him but I had yanked her back off him yet again, squeezing her arm real hard in the process. "Let go of me!"

"What if I don't wanna?" I asked, fucking with her just because I could. "What are you going to do about it?"

Wrong question. In a move I never expected in a million years, she socked my right below the eye. She fucking hit me hard too. Say what you will about the Lawsons but they all fucking have one hell of a right hook.

"I HATE you!" she told me, actually crying because the alcohol was making her even more emotional that usual. "I HATE you! Why do you hate me? What did I do to you? All you ever do is fucking be MEAN! You've been mean since I first met you!"

"So what?" I said, clenching my fists together tightly. "You hate me too."

"Because you were mean first!. YOU started this! YOU were mean to me since day one and I've never done anything to you to make you that way!"

"Oh fuck you, yes you have," I shot back.

"What then?" she asked. "Tell me what it was. TELL ME what I did wrong you son of a bitch!" Wow, this was the mouthiest I had ever heard her. Fucking booze gave her courage she never had otherwise.

"Him!" I shouted, pointing to James, who was completely oblivious to what was going on around him. " You fucking are always around him! You always have been! Every time I want to be with him, you're always right fucking there! It fucking drives me crazy! Why the fuck can't you go away and leave us be? He's MINE, not YOURS!" She started trying to say something but I wouldn't let her. Eleven years of jealousy and anger were coming out and I wasn't about to stop now. "What the fuck can you give him anyway? You're relationship isn't fucking right! You're brother and fucking sister! Your relationship is fucking WRONG!"

"You think I don't know that?" she shot back. "You think I don't fucking know that?"

"Then stop-"

"Don't you fucking DARE tell me to do ANYTHING unless you're prepared to tell HIM the same fucking thing!" She was just bawling her eyes out and her voice was going hoarse because it wasn't used to yelling the way it was. "It's NOT a one way thing Mark! We're BOTH guilty so don't just cast stones at me. Cast them at him too-if you've got the balls."

**Glenn note: Ha. We all know he couldn't do that. He was afraid James would leave him if he did and hell, I thought it too. James could claim he loved them both equally until the end of time but I'll always believed he loved her more.**

I shook my head angrily at her. "You're a fucking bitch," I declared. "And I fucking hate you."

"I hate you more," she shot back, hiccupping and hyperventilating because of all her crying. "I hate you and I should just tell James I saw you kissing Krissy McDonald behind the gym-" She shrieked and tried to bolt out of the room as I lunged at her. I managed to grab her by the wrist and that began a huge struggle that involved her hitting me in the face some more and me bending her wrists so far back I just about broke them.

**Glenn note: I should leave that out because he's dead if Cooper reads that but uh…yeah fuck it. He said it, its his fault if he gets slaughtered.**

Eventually I shoved her back against the wall and at that point, the kissing started. I can't even really remember who initiated it. She said it was me and fuck, maybe it was. It's not exactly something I've been jumping up and down to remember. The entire thing was quick, hard and hate filled; when it was over I got the hell away from her and let her sink down to the floor in a daze. We were both too drunk to be disgusted with ourselves. It was just something that happened and it was just supposed to be a mistake that would just need to be forgotten once we sobered up. I wasn't even thinking about telling James…but little did I know that there wasn't going to be a choice in the matter, because those few minutes of hate driven sex changed everything forever.


	23. The Pregnancy

The Pregnancy (James)

Annabelle getting pregnant shocked the hell out of me, but not in a bad way. Once I got over the shock of it all I was happy. I was actually happier than she was in the beginning. It might sound insane but I really wanted a baby. Shrinks would probably say it was because I wanted unconditional love, something Caroline had never even wanted to give me. I wasn't into that whole introspective kind of shit though. I just wanted a kid and I wanted it to be mine. Even after Annabelle told me about her drunken one night stand with Mark and it was pretty much confirmed that it was his kid I wanted it to be mine. It helped that Mark wanted nothing to do with the situation. As angry as I was for being an asshole to Annabelle and abandoning his own child, it worked out perfectly for me. It gave me a chance to step in and do the things Mark should have been doing and then some.

"So what do you want to have?" I asked her one day out of the blue. She was about three and a half months along and was already resorting to wearing clothes that were too big to her because she was so paranoid about Mom noticing any kind of weight gain. We had already decided that we were going to keep her condition a secret for as long as possible. Mom absolutely hated children and babies just filled her with a rage that was beyond not pretty. We were both lucky to even make it to be as old as we were and we both knew that we had to keep her in the dark for as long as possible. Eventually it would become impossible and even if we didn't tell her she would figure it out at some point. Until then though, we would gladly keep her in the dark.

Annabelle shrugged and continued to doodle in her notebook. "I don't know. I haven't really thought about it yet." She stopped with the doodling and looked over at me. "What do you want?"

Now it was my turn to shrug. "I dunno." That was the only answer I could really give her because I couldn't actually make up my mind. Some days I wanted a little girl and others I wanted a little boy. It just wasn't a decision I could make so I was shooting more for the cliché answer of healthy. As long as the child came out healthy, the gender could be either or. "You think I'll be a good daddy?"

She frowned a bit. "Uncle. You're going to be an uncle."

"No, I'm going to be a daddy." I wasn't going to be swayed on this matter. If I was going to be helping to raise this child then I was going to be the father. It didn't matter to me that I was not only not the biological father but also the biological uncle; I wanted to be daddy and that was just that.

Annabelle just looked at me for the longest time before just nodding along and accepting what I said. She never ever truly tried to argue with me about anything. On very rare occasions she made half hearted attempts but those never lasted very long.

"So am I?" I asked worriedly.

"What?" she said, having forgotten the original question.

"Am I going to be a good daddy?" That has always been my biggest fear when it comes to parenthood. My parents fucked me and Annabelle up so badly that I really did fear doing the same thing to our kids. I swore up and down to myself that I would never ever be like them but that didn't mean the fear just went away. No it stayed, lingering on like a wound that absolutely refused to heal.

"Yeah," she said with a nod. "Of course you will." She pushed her chair back and wrapped her arms protectively around her stomach. "Do you think I'll be an okay mom?"

"Okay? You'll be great." She didn't look convinced at all so I got up and walked over to her. "I mean it. You'll be fucking fantastic." I gave her a big kiss for good measure and petted her hair gently. "You've been taking care of me since we were babies. Another baby should be easy compared to that."

She smiled weakly but that didn't mean her fears just went away either. We would never say it to one another but we were both nervous wrecks over this situation. In a lot of ways we had grown up at a very very young age because our parents didn't take care of us but the fact of the matter was we were still kids ourselves and really weren't ready to have one ourselves. It wasn't like we had a choice though. The baby was coming and getting rid of it wasn't an option (no matter how many times Mark insisted it was) so we had to just suck it up and deal with it.

For the next couple months, the only people that had any idea about her pregnancy were me, her, Mark and Glenn. But by the fifth month people at school were starting to catch on. The teachers kept asking questions and trying to put their noses where it didn't belong and the girls at school tormented her for her baggy clothes, accusing her of trying to hide her fat. I don't know how many of them actually thought she was just getting fat at first or who found out when but I do know that eventually, they all just knew. And every single one of them thought it was my baby. I heard the whispers every time I walked down the hallway and Annabelle absolutely refused to leave my side unless she had to and she had Glenn or Mark to protect her under my orders. She was the weaker one of us so she got harassed horribly. Not only was she a pregnant sixteen year old (not a common thing to be seen at schools back then like they are today-back then they were still shipped off to homes for unwed mothers) but they all thought it was my baby so the whole incest thing really was what did it for them.

Of course they never ever said this shit to my face. They were terrified of me. I was the resident psychopath so who the hell was going to say shit to me? They thought I would chop their heads off and eat their brains or something like that. And while I wouldn't go that far I would have killed them straight up if they fucking said that shit to my face. Hell I wanted to kill them for doing it to Belle but she wouldn't let me. She had to repeatedly tell me it would be too suspicious if I offed the entire school and unfortunately I had to concede to her logic.

I honestly didn't give a shit what the school thought though. They had thought we were freaks for years so it wasn't like anything had changed. I know it bothered her a whole bunch but she never talked about it if she could help it. Sometimes I would try to talk to her about it but she never wanted to get into it. So I would drop it and we would try to act like it wasn't happening.

It got easier at least once we knew what we were having. We found out we were having a boy and we went nuts with the preparation. We had to get all the clothes and the supplies and pick out a name. The name thing actually turned out to be easier than I originally thought it would be. Belle and I were discussing it one night while driving around with Mark and Glenn and while the discussion was annoying Mark, we were just going ahead and having it anyway.

"What about Benjamin?" Annabelle asked. We were in the backseat of the car and she was resting her head against my shoulder.

Mark snorted loudly when he heard that one. "Benjamin? Really? You looking to get the kid beat up or something?"

Annabelle wilted and I glared at him while Glenn rolled his eyes. "Mark, I think if you're choosing to be a deadbeat dad, you don't a get a say in the name thing," he said.

"Yeah," I chimed in. "Crispy's right for once." I turned back to Annabelle and kissed her forehead. "That would be a good middle name. I'm not feeling it as a first name but a middle name definitely."

"Okay…then we're still at square boned for the first name."

We were and remained that way for the next couple of minutes. But then the next song on the radio was an Alice Cooper one and it hit me. "Cooper!"

I got three very startled looks because I had pretty much shouted it at the top of my lungs. "Cooper?" Mark was the first one to recover from my sudden shouting.

"Yeah," I said happily. "Cooper."

Annabelle mulled that one over. "Cooper Benjamin Lawson…I like it."

That sealed that deal right there. Our baby officially had a name. The joy of having gotten the name picked out didn't get to stick around too long. Caroline eventually pulled herself away from her booze filled days to figure out Annabelle was pregnant and just like all the other kids in school, she automatically assumed it was mine. And since I was in no hurry to tell to truth to anyone, I made Annabelle hide from the evil bitch and took the beatings for the both of us.

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?" Caroline screamed, aiming yet another kick to my ribs. I had lost count of how many I had taken at this point. I was hoping that she would just wear herself out so she would eventually stop but that wasn't what was happening. If anything, with every hit she gave me, she was just getting more and more warmed up. "You fucking got that slut pregnant?" Bam! Another kick to the ribs. I was coughing up blood at this point. "I knew you were fucking retarded but THIS…" She grabbed me by the hair and yanked my head back so we were looking eye to eye. "You fucking created a fucking mongoloid."

"Shut up," I growled. "He's not-" Bam! Knee to the face and I was just about knocked the fuck out.

"It's a boy?" Caroline was absolutely disgusted. "Fucking fucking fuck!" She stormed off and I knew she was going to go to Annabelle and I couldn't let her do that. I forced myself back up to my feet and tackled her from behind, which really pissed her off.

"Get off of me!" she ordered, doing her best to fight me off.

"No!" I refused, actually hitting her as hard as I could to make her stop. "You leave them alone! You leave her and my baby-"

"Your baby is a retarded incest spawn that needs kicked out of her!" Caroline shoved me off and headed for the stairs and in a state of panic I grabbed a lamp and smashed it over her head, managing to knock her out. And for the night, the madness stopped-but that wasn't the end of the problems between her and me and Belle. Now that the cat was out of the bag, Caroline wanted the pregnancy terminated before it could come to full term and she wanted to do it herself. Even after finding out Cooper was really Mark's via reading Annabelle's diary she wanted him dead. I begged and pleaded with her to just stop and give him a chance but she wouldn't listen. It go so bad I made Mark have Glenn plead to Bearer to let Annabelle stay with them at their house because like Sparky, she could not be left alone with Mom for a single second. Bearer only agreed because it was Mark's baby and it gave him the chance to bitch at Mark to take care of his own child, which really made things even more tense between Belle and Mark.

"You know what you have to do Lawson," Mark said one night in Belle's eighth month of pregnancy. She was asleep and Mark and I were playing cards while Sparky laid at my feet, snoring away.

"Yeah," I said. "I gotta beat you and use the pool of money to buy-"

"No you idiot, not about all this," Mark said irritably. "Caroline."

I stiffened at his words. "What do you mean? I haven't seen her in days there's no-"

"Lawson, I know you like getting abused by her and all-"

"Excuse me? That comment pissed me off. "You think I LIKE things she does to me? And Belle? Are you fucking kidding me?"

Mark winced but didn't back down from his claim. "For seventeen fucking years she's done nothing but hurt you and your damn sister and for the past several you've just been letting her do it, chasing this stupid dream that she will one day wake up and love you. She's not going to though. I'm saying this for your own damn good because you're too stubborn to see it for yourself. She's not capable of loving anyone. She never has been and she won't just start because she's going to be a grandma. You gotta just get rid of her already."

Deep down, I knew he was right. It didn't mean I wanted to admit it though. No matter what she did, I couldn't truly admit and accept that gaining even the tiniest bit of love and approval for Caroline was a lost cause. I wanted to have hope and sometimes I was okay with the screaming and the hitting because it was better than the blatant indifference she showed me when not in rage mode.

"She's going to kill you one day Lawson," Mark said, shuffling his cards and giving me a look that clearly said he wanted to shake me for not just seeing things his way. "She'll kill you and her and the kid." He pointed to Annabelle as he said that part. "You fucking know that's how it'll go. You fucking know it."

I put down my cards and got up to my feet. "I need air," I told him.

"James-"

I didn't stop to turn around. I just left, walking aimlessly through the neighborhood for about a half hour before going home to talk to Caroline. I didn't know what I was trying to accomplish really by attempting it. I knew in my heart it was all going to be in vain. She wouldn't listen to me but still in I went, like the good little glutton for punishment I was. And in retrospect, there still is a large part of me that wishes I hadn't done it that night. What happened when I went in there was beyond disturbing.

"Mom?" I called out as I entered the house. The lights were all on but I didn't hear a sound. "Mom? Are you here?" I closed the door behind me and ventured further and further into the house, frowning when I heard the sound of an infant of all things. "Mom?" I started to follow the baby's sounds but then it went quiet…too quiet. I quickly picked up my pace and ended up finding Mom in the kitchen, drowning the baby in a sink full of water. "MOM!" I ripped her back by the hair and got the baby out of the water but I was already too late. She had drowned the poor fucking thing. "What the fuck were you doing?" I yelled as I cradled the dead infant in my arms. As many people as I had killed even at that point I had never ever done something as sick as this. "WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?"

She didn't look remotely fazed by my screaming. She just smiled cruelly and answered my question in the calmest of voices. "I was just getting ready for little Cooper. I know I made a huge mistake with you and your sister but I won't make it twice. You can fucking count on that."

My whole body turned numb as she walked away. What she was implying killed me inside. The mistake was allowing me and Annabelle to live. She wasn't going to let Cooper live, she was too cruel and hateful. And there was nothing that could be said or done to change her mind. I knew that in my heart and I finally came to the realization everyone else had been begging me to come to for ages now.

It was time to kill the bitch.


	24. Killing Caroline

Killing Caroline (James)

Knowing that I had to kill Caroline didn't automatically make it an easy thing for me to do. I was still utterly terrified of her and I still loved her as much as I hated her. That was always my problem; I loved her despite my hate for her and I hated that nothing I ever did gained her favor in any way. Everyone tried to tell me it was completely futile and I didn't want to listen to them. I craved her favor like a junkie craves his next fix and not being able to get it just always killed me. Why was loving me so hard to do? I tried with her. I tried so hard and got the shit beat out of me every time. I hated her because she wouldn't show me just a sign-one measley fucking sign-of affection and I hated myself for not being able to get it.

"So when the hell are you going to do it?" Mark asked about a couple of days after I had made the decision to finally do it. The two of us plus Annabelle and Glenn were all sitting at one of the tables at the park, me drinking a beer, Mark and Glenn smoking a joint with their beers and Annabelle eating some ice cream. Ice cream was a huge craving of hers during pregnancy and plus she really needed the icy cold creaminess could offer that day. Apparently she had snapped and wailed on a girl that called Cooper a freak. It was hard for me to fathom considering Annabelle's extremely withdrawn and non-violent nature but then again, I hadn't ever seen her defend the honor of her child before. As I would come to learn later on, children bring out a whole new side to you and you did shit for them you would normally never do.

"I dunno," I shrugged. "Soon…I guess."

Glenn, Annabelle and Mark all exchanged looks and that made me frown. "What?" I asked. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Annabelle automatically said.

"We think you're not going to do it," Glenn said bluntly. "We think you're going to pussy out-"

"Pussy out?" That accusation made me scowl in a hurry. "What the hell do you mean I'll pussy out?"

"We mean what it sounds like," Mark said, jumping on this bandwagon just a little too quickly. "None of us think that you have it in you to do what needs to done. Not even Belle here thinks so, even if she won't say it to your face like we will."

"I can do it," I insisted, my eyes narrowing when I saw that I was convincing nobody. "I can!"

"We'll believe that when it happens," he replied bluntly. "Or should I say if?"

That made me scowl even more and it lit a fire up underneath my ass to prove them wrong (which was their intent when trying to call my bluff). My determination to prove them wrong plus focusing on all the anger and frustration I felt towards Caroline and also the absolute necessity of doing it led to my actions the next day. I made sure Annabelle and Sparky were safe with Mark and Glenn before going back home and finding that Caroline had picked herself up off the couch and was in the shower. That was perfect for me because it gave me time to go down to the basement and get some stuff set up and grab a metal pipe before going back upstairs to wait outside the bathroom door. The entire time I stood there I was doing my absolute best not to think too much. Thinking would just lead to trouble. So I just tried to focus all of my attention on staying as still as possible, knowing that if I moved too much I would make the floor creak and possibly give my position away. That would have fucked me over big time.

It felt like it took forever but the door finally began to open. I struck immediately, knowing that if I gave her even a second to realize what was happening it could lead to serious trouble. I whacked her in the head with the pipe, quickly following that blow up with two more as she fell back to the floor. Once I was sure she was unconscious I stood over her for a minute, absorbing what I had just done before picking her up and carrying her downstairs to the basement. Part of me was telling myself that I needed to just knife her and get it over with. The sooner it was done, the better off everything would be. But for whatever reason, I ignored that bright idea and tied her down to a table in the basement and then just waited for her to wake up. I don't remember exactly what was running through my mind while I waited and to be honest, I'm not sure if I want to remember it. What I do remember though was that Caroline was not at all amused when she woke up.

"What the FUCK is this shit?" she growled at me. She tried to get up but quickly realized she wasn't going anywhere. "Oh you have got to be kidding me!" She gave me a very annoyed look. "So this is it huh? Felt like torturing me before you offed me?" She chuckled dryly at the look I gave her in return. "What? Isn't that what this is all about? You finally offing me?" She shook her head and chuckled some more. "Is there going to be torture? Because I never thought you would have had the stomach for it. You're too much of-"

"Shut up," I finally said.

"Oooh someone grew a set." Caroline looked absolutely disgusted. "I bet you wouldn't have said that if I wasn't tied down."

I ignored that comment and instead took a couple of steps toward her. "I hate you," I confessed in a low voice.

She snorted. "So? I hated you first."

I scowled and belted her across the face as hard as I could, busting her lip open with the back of my hand. "Why?"

She ran her tongue over her lip to lick up the blood and then rolled her eyes. "Oh fuck me, is this what it's going to be about? You bitching at me because I didn't love you enough?" She shook her head in disgust. "If it is, just fucking spare me already because I don't want to hear it."

"It's not what this is all about," I denied, even though it really mostly was. I wasn't even convincing myself as I made that denial and I knew there was no way she was convinced. "I have to protect Cooper. I have to-"

"Why are you jumping all over yourself to claim a baby that isn't even yours?" She sounded legitimately interested in the answer to that question for once. "I mean really, why are you so hell bent on claiming a child that isn't even yours? Especially when he's your sister's? Are you that fucking retarded that you don't understand why two siblings shouldn't be playing Mommy and Daddy? You'll fucking raise a freak-"

I hit her for that. More than once. I punched her over and over and over again, letting out some of the seventeen years of pent up frustration I had in me. Of course, that didn't automatically mean I got the exact result I was looking for when I did it. Pain was not something that truly bothered her and daily fist fights with Joseph truly numbed her to getting hit. So I decided to up the ante and torture her a bit.

Two days…two days I had her down there. Inflicting any and all kinds of torture that I had read or heard about and hell, I think I might have made up a couple of different kinds while I was at it. All the shit is just a blur in my head now-

**Cooper note: He's lying his ass off. I know him too well and I can tell it's not a blur at all. He just don't want to admit otherwise.**

-but I do remember her just taking it all. She was tied down pretty tight so it wasn't like she had any other choice in the matter but she also just seemed…amused. That only frustrated me more, which in turn made her even more amused. It was vicious little circle that for awhile seemed like it would never end.

"Do you feel any better yet?" Caroline finally asked me. She was covered from almost head to toe in her own blood and the cuts I had given her were turning all sorts of nasty colors. Whether the infection was natural or from the bleach I had poured on them was debatable. "Because I'm starting to get bored."

"You fucking think I care?" I snapped.

"Of course you do. That's the fucking problem. You can't just accept the fact that I hate your guts and wish you were never born. No no, you have to fucking whine and bitch and act like you fucking need to earn my love or some shit. It's fucking annoying as fuck." She coughed and turned her head to the side so she could spit out a mouthful of blood. "You can't torture me to get love. It's not in me and even if it was I still wouldn't love you."

"Shut up," I ordered.

She smirked. Fuck how I hated that fucking smirk. I had tried wiping that damn thing off her face but it refused to go. She kept it firmly on, probably just to mock me. "So what's going to happen once you finally just man up and kill me? You and that cunt sister of your will live happily ever after with that baby?"

"It's none of your business."

"Where does Mark fit in in all of that?"

"Again it's none of-"

"Don't it bother you at all that the brat isn't actually your baby?" She was just looking to pick a fight. "I mean really, how are you going to be able to look at it and love it knowing it's not yours?"

My answer to that was to take out my knife and hold it up threateningly. She was really just pushing it now.

She laughed a bit at me and then shook her head. "You know what I regret? Not taking care of it like I did the first one."

That comment made me stop and stare at her in confusion. "What other one?"

"Oh, you didn't know?" Looking back I should have realized she was setting me up and I should have just ignored the attempt and killed her. But I was an idiot and I let my curiosity get the best of me.

"No, I don't know."

Her smirk turned into a full fledged grin and she moved her head up as much as she could. "Your sister didn't tell you about her other pregnancy? The one the slut went through when she was thirteen? Fucking thirteen years old and the bitch gets herself knocked up. And I think it was yours…although knowing her, who knows-"

"You're lying," I said automatically.

"Actually I'm not."

"No you are," I insisted. "Belle would have told me-"

"Well I took care of the problem right after she took the test," she stated matter of factly. There was absolutely no remorse in her tone. She made it sound like she had just done the dishes or taken out the trash or something mundane like that. "So maybe she thought she was "sparing" you or something by not saying anything."

"You're lying-"

"I'm not!" The way she said that made me jump about a foot in the air. "You really don't fucking believe me? Go ask her! Or better yet, read that fucking diary of hers. I know she fucking wrote it in there somewhere." She got even more annoyed when I just stood there. "Go you fucking retard!"

I finally went and checked Annabelle's diary. And I regretted it. Not just because I looked through her shit without asking but because I discovered that Caroline wasn't lying. Annabelle had been pregnant four years before but never got the chance to tell me. Caroline found out first and had taken it upon herself to beat her to a pulp, causing her to miscarry the baby. Our baby…our baby, who should have been in preschool by then.

I just sat there in Belle's room for a long time, just trying to absorb that information. Once it sunk in, I temporarily blacked out, not coming to until I drove the knife deep into Caroline's stomach. Her eyes widened in pain but there still was no fear anywhere in them. In fact, they almost seemed to be laughing at me. Laughing…always laughing. Fucking mocking me and making me feel less than human. I was fucking done. I fucking had to make it stop.

I felt like I was watching myself from outside my own body during everything that happened next. I ripped her from her restraints and threw her down to the ground, beating her and stabbing her in a furious frenzy and I knew I was doing it because I could feel her blood on my hands and I could feel my lips move as I screamed at her but it didn't feel like it was me doing it. That don't make any sense whatsoever but that was what it felt like.

At some point, I blacked out completely because the next thing I do remember was Annabelle holding me while Mark and Glenn tried to scrape Caroline's remains off the floor so they could all be put into a bag and taken to the desert to be burned. I had literally ripped her apart from limb to limb but it was hard for me to take any real joy in it. It didn't change a single thing she had done to me, it didn't make her suddenly love me and it certainly didn't fucking bring back my newly discovered dead child.

And it didn't change the fact that her dead eyes were not only on me but they were still mocking me…


	25. Cooper

Cooper

**Jeff note: To avoid any issues with Mark or have Cooper accuse James of being a sap, I'm writing this chapter. Phil was supposed to write it but James kicked him out a window and Glenn had to take him to a hospital. So yeah…I got the responsibilities for this. This should be real interesting…**

…

Mark

I get a lot of heat for this particular subject. A lot of it. Like I get flat out roasted. And it's whatever, I don't really care. Cooper and I have never gotten along and we more than likely never will. Cooper's been a pain in my ass for a very long time now and I know he's got a laundry list of issues with me. One of them being either he's angry at me for being his father or not at least trying to take responsibility for him-I get confused as to which it is because it seems to change sometimes. But whatever the case is, the fact of the matter is I was sixteen when Annabelle got pregnant and seventeen by the time Cooper was born. I wasn't anywhere remotely near ready to be a father. Annabelle sure as shit wasn't ready to be a mother and I knew she sure as hell wished I wasn't the father. I think she would have taken Cooper being her and James's weird, inappropriate and creepy love child over being my spawn.

On the subject of James, there are some of those who question as to why he would overstep his bounds as uncle and take over the father role. From day one he didn't consider himself anything but the father, even though biology proved differently. For the longest time it baffled me. It really really did. I mean I understood that he wanted to help Annabelle and stuff so she didn't have to raise Cooper on her own but the way he was about it…it was just beyond anything that he actually needed to do.

It was Glenn that pointed out what probably was the real reason and while skeptical of pretty much any psychobabble bullshit, even I think it fits for him. Lawson spent the first seventeen years of his life chasing love that didn't exist from Caroline and it drove him absolutely nuts. Then the whole pregnancy thing came along and like some chicks tend to do, he wanted that baby because it was going to love him unconditionally or whatever. A little nuts in my opinion, but whatever. Lawson's never been a bucket of sanity so it works for him.

…

James

The first time I held Cooper in my arms I was silently freaking the hell out. Imagining what it would be like and actually doing it were like two entirely different things. And I had like a million questions going through my head. Was he going to know how fucked up I was? I had only killed Caroline a couple of weeks before he was born and Belle and I were in the process of looking around for a different house for us to move into. We could not stay in the one we were at. Too many bad memories were associated with it. But with all the last minute preparations for Cooper being made and both of us being nervous wrecks and not able to talk about it for our own reasons, house hunting wasn't getting the priority that it probably should have been. I was being plagued by nightmares, the majority of them flashbacks to things I would rather forget and being in that house just made it all the worse. And then I held Cooper and after going "Holy crap his hair is orange", I was like "Holy crap…" just in general, you know? There I was, a damaged fucker in my own right and I was expecting to be able to help raise this child. I didn't actually tell anyone I was thinking all that though. I was putting on a much much stronger and more confident front for Annabelle and any time anything Cooper related was brought up around Mark it usually led to us having a fight. So I just bottled my issues up and ignored them as I tried to figure out just what the hell I was supposed to do. I didn't have any even halfway decent parent figures in my life nor had I ever so I just went with a general rule: don't be my parents. They fucked me up three ways to Sunday and I couldn't become them. Not ever.

As far as sleeping through the night and general fussiness or whatever, Cooper was good about that. He was sleeping through the night not long after we brought him home, he didn't really cry too much and when he did we always got him settled back down pretty quickly. We were pretty lucky that he was so easy because I don't know what we would have done if he wasn't. When he was three months old we moved out of the old house and into a new one. It was a much nicer house in a much better neighborhood. There were other new parents in the area, which made Annabelle happy because she wanted Cooper to have plenty of friends (that didn't exactly work out too well but that's another conversation entirely) and I was just glad to be out of that hell hole. Living there was too much because I (and Belle) could feel Caroline's presence still lingering on and it was just too fucking creepy.

Sounds like all roses right? Well not exactly. We had a few issues. Mark seemed to get more and more annoyed with me because I was much more content to stay at home with Belle and Cooper than go out and do what he wanted to do. That lead to more to our share of fights and for whatever reason, around the time Cooper was nine months old, Bearer got it in his head to start calling and giving Annabelle shit for having him out of wedlock and not doing the "right thing" by making Mark take responsibility for Cooper. I really don't know what inspired that bullshit because he knew damn well Mark and Belle hated each other; the only conclusion I've ever really drawn was that he was just doing it to be an asshole. That led to a fight with me and him and then it led to another fight with Mark because I demanded for him to step in and shut up Bearer.

"Why do you insist on dragging me into it?" Mark asked in exasperation. He was sitting at the kitchen table, trying to concentrate on the beer he had in front of him.

"Because you know he won't listen to me," I replied. "And for whatever reason you seem to almost like having him around and get irritated with me saying I'll kill him. So if you want him to live, maybe you should get him under control."

Mark grunted loudly and took a big drink of his beer. "You're not killing him Lawson. Bearer's an idiot but he's a useful one."

"Useful?" I shook my head in disbelief. "Useful? Really? Useful for what exactly?"

"Nothing YOU care about." That meant wrestling of course. Bearer was Mark's connection with that whole world and he was looking to exploit that connection any way he possibly could.

"James?" Annabelle coming in with Cooper put an end to our fight for the moment.

"Yeah?" I was trying to ignore the not so pleasant look on Mark's face but that didn't really go too well.

"We're out of milk and I need it for dinner tonight." Annabelle was getting Mark's glare and even me reaching over and whacking the back of his head didn't do anything to defuse the situation. "Could you-"

"BAH!" Cooper suddenly launched the bottle he was holding at Mark, getting him right in the face.

"Mother FUCKER!" Mark yelped and flew back, mostly from shock than anything else.

Cooper howled with laughter and clapped his hands together and I couldn't stop the grin that came over my face. Annabelle was attempting to tell Cooper he couldn't throw things but he looked just so happy that he did it that I didn't have it in me to tell him no. Some people have claimed that I let my kids run wild. Mark, Crispy and Bearer especially always have said that I need to tame my kids. But what did they know? Bearer sucked, Crispy has never had kids and Mark has four kids he's never really raised. So really, what the fuck have they ever known? That's what I want to know.

So the throwing things at Mark continued, although it was only when I was around and not Annabelle. Mark wasn't entirely pleased with it but I just told him it was a phase and he threw things at other people too. And it wasn't even like I was lying. He launched rattles at the cashiers at the grocery store, he threw his bottle to make me go get it and he even launched his stuffed animals at me, laughing when they hit me in the face. So yeah, I told Mark he needed to stop taking the shit so personally. He was a baby he threw shit. It happened.

And once Cooper learned to crawl? That was it. He went pretty much anywhere he could and got into anything he could reach. He actually used to get really mad at the gate we put up by the stairs because it was blocking where he really wanted to go and then he always made faces at me because I would sit there next to him and laugh.

"You KNOW that's mean right?" Annabelle asked me as I was sitting next to Cooper, who had pulled himself up into a standing position using the gate (he wasn't good at keeping his balance yet so the gate was also acting as his support to even stay up) and was trying to shake it down.

"It's not mean," I denied quickly. "I'm not laughing AT him…I'm just laughing cuz he's cute." I looked at Cooper and nodded my head as he tried to shake the gate. "You're going to get it aren't you? You're going to knock it right down aren't you?"

"Da Da Da!" He started shaking the gate harder and banging on it with the palm of his hand.

"Come on you can do it," I encouraged. "You can do it. Get that mean gate down. Get it get it get-whoops!" Cooper had tried to kick the gate and ended up falling on his ass. "Aw, poor Cooper." I scooped him into my arms and bounced him lightly. "That mean gate knocked you down didn't it?"

"Da Da DA!" Cooper reached down and somehow managed to snag my knife out of my pocket. Apparently it had been sticking out without me realizing it and it had attracted his attention.

"James!" Annabelle squeaked out.

"Hey now, that's Daddy's." I grabbed on to his hand with the knife and then playfully gnawed on his arm until he squealed and let it go. "You're too young for this. Daddy will get you one when you're older." I looked up at Annabelle and noticed the unhappy look on her face. "What?"

"James…why do you have that with you right now?" She took Cooper from me and hugged him tightly.

"Have what?" I followed her gaze to my knife. "This? I always have it."

"Around him?"

"It's not like I whip it out all willy nilly." I pouted a bit and got up to my feet. "I-"

"He's a BABY James you can't have your knife around him! And you can't be promising to give him a knife. That's not…" she shook her head. "You said you would try to stop."

"I have been trying."

"You tried for two days and then you went hunting last night." Crap. I was busted. "You don't even want to stop. You tell me will because that's what I want to hear." This was pretty much the only subject we ever came close to fighting about. She wanted me to stop killing. She didn't like that I did it (never liked it actually) but now that Cooper was in the picture she was trying to stand her ground on it and say that I needed to stop for him. What good was I going to do for him if I got caught and thrown in jail for the rest of my life? When I tried to assure her I wouldn't get caught, she would just get mad at me and say I didn't get it. Then when I tried to explain to her that I needed it she just got even more upset and always went off, leaving me to feel bad.

"Ma ma ma!" Cooper rested his head on her shoulder and petted her face, trying to direct her attention all to him.

"I'll try harder," I told her. "I will I'll-"

"James…please…" She shook her head. "Just don't. I can't do this right now."

"But-"

"I gotta make dinner." It was a flimsy excuse, one only used because she was too timid to make this into a big argument. Still, it served its purpose. It made me feel like complete shit but I didn't know what to do. I couldn't stop. I NEEDED to do it, needed it more than I could ever convey to her without scaring the shit out of her. I always played it off to Mark as I just liked doing it but the truth was I needed it. It gave me a sense of power, a sense of control…I knew Annabelle hated it but I couldn't stop. Not for her.

And not even for Cooper.


End file.
